Wronged Post Office staff must get ‘full, fair’ compensation

All victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal must be given immediate “full, fair and final compensation”, the government has been warned.

A new report by a cross-party Business Department Select Committee says it is “unacceptable” that 555 sub-postmasters, who originally brought the case to court, have lost out on money – compared to other victims – because of huge legal bills.The 555 form the Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance, or JFSA, who took on the Post Office in the High Court in 2019.

They proved that accounting errors from its Horizon IT system had caused the unexplained cash shortfalls for which they had been blamed.

In total more than 700 former Post Office staff were wrongly prosecuted for theft and false accounting. Some ended up in jail, others became bankrupt trying to repay money they did not owe, and a few even took their own lives before their names could be cleared.Chris Head is one of the 555 sub-postmasters.

His life was ruined after he was accused of stealing more than £88,000 from his branch in West Boldon in Tyne and Wear between 2014 and 2015.

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He says the fallout has cost him upwards of £100,000 and saddled him with debts he is still trying to repay today. But because of spiralling legal bills from years of fighting, along with being barred from a separate compensation scheme for victims having settled their case at the time – the average pay out the group has been left with is around £20,000 each.“We’re not asking for anything that we’re not entitled to, anything that we don’t deserve,” Mr Head told Sky News. “We’re asking to be put back into the financial position we would be in had we not encountered the Horizon scandal at all.“There are people who are still potentially losing their homes, they’re still in bankruptcy, they can’t move out of this unless they are fully compensated for everything they have been through.”

Image: The Post Office introduced the Horizon IT system in 1999

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‘I contemplated suicide over Post Office accusation’Post Office ‘massively contributed’ to sub-postmaster death, says widowThe settlement agreement that the 555 signed when they brought their case to court, said they would not seek further compensation or bring further legal action.

But Labour MP Darren Johnson, chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee, says the agreement is unfair – and should be scrapped.

“Ministers and the Post Office have said they agree that every victim should have full, fair and final compensation,” Mr Johnson told Sky News. “But at the moment, the chancellor hasn’t signed the check to pay the bill.“The government has announced a new compensation scheme, but because [the 555] settled in court, they’ve been excluded from being able to get access to that – and we think that’s wrong.

“It’s in the power of ministers and the Post Office to allow them to have access by unwinding their settlement agreement – which is what we are calling for.”The BEIS committee is also calling for the government to extend compensation to the families of those who have died since the scandal came to light.

They are asking the government to consider a counterclaim against Fujitsu – the company which made the faulty Horizon software – to recover some of the costs on behalf of the taxpayer.

Explainer:What is the Post Office scandal, why were postmasters prosecuted and what is Horizon?A public inquiry set up by the government to investigate the scandal continues this week – with testimony from many of the sub-postmasters affected.The government has not yet confirmed any additional compensation on top of what has already been offered.

But the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy told Sky News: “The Horizon scandal has had a devastating impact on postmasters and their families, with many losing their livelihoods or being wrongly convicted for crimes they didn’t commit.

“That is why we have set up a statutory inquiry to set out exactly what went wrong, and we are providing financial support for compensation.“We are eager to see all Horizon-related issues resolved fairly and quickly, including for the 555, who played a crucial role in bringing this scandal to light.”