Put up Workplace nonetheless can’t discover proof for 1,400 scandal redress claimants, whereas individuals die ready
The Put up Workplace is unable to search out proof to help about 1,400 claims for redress, which is a rise within the variety of individuals in the identical place of limbo a 12 months in the past.
Regardless of writing to subpostmasters affected by the Put up Workplace Horizon scandal, encouraging them to use for redress, the Put up Workplace is unable to search out proof for losses in lots of circumstances.
This isn’t a current improvement. As revealed by Laptop Weekly a 12 months in the past, greater than 1,000 former subpostmasters had been searching for compensation, regardless of the Put up Workplace failing to search out proof that Horizon errors had been answerable for the shortfalls
On the time, in April 2025, the federal government mentioned it was conscious of the difficulty and was working to resolve it. A spokesperson for the Division for Enterprise and Commerce (DBT) mentioned: “Every case is handled individually, and we’re working to tell affected claimants on subsequent steps as quickly as attainable.”
Most of those circumstances date again to earlier than 2005, a time for which the Put up Workplace has poor data.
One claimant, who’s amongst these nonetheless ready for redress, advised Laptop Weekly they’d been knowledgeable that there are actually 1,400 circumstances the place proof can’t be discovered.
The DBT and the Put up Workplace had not responded to questions when this text was revealed.
Information final week that scandal sufferer Parmod Kalia, 67, had died earlier than receiving full redress was one other instance of justice being delayed and denied. Kalia, who was jailed as a part of his sentence, had his wrongful conviction for monetary crime overturned in Might 2021.
The claimants have utilized for a £75,000 mounted fee beneath the Put up Workplace’s Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS) – beforehand known as the Historic Shortfall Scheme – which was set as much as supply redress to victims of the Put up Workplace Horizon scandal.
There have been 9,505 so-called “eligible late claims” to the HSS, which primarily got here ahead after ITV’s dramatisation of the Put up Workplace scandal, with 8,100 provides made by the federal government and seven,294 paid thus far.
Calum Greenhow, CEO of the Nationwide Federation of Subpostmasters (NFSP), mentioned the organisation is being contacted commonly by its members who’re within the group of 1,400 circumstances. “Key to that is the truth that the onus shouldn’t be on the subpostmasters to show they’d losses attributable to Horizon, however for the Put up Workplace to show they didn’t,” he mentioned.
Contacted however not compensated
One claimant advised Laptop Weekly they’d been contacted out of the blue in 2024 by the Put up Workplace advising them to make a declare, however over a 12 months later, the organisation has not settled the declare and has mentioned it may well’t discover proof.
Many circumstances date again to quickly after the Put up Workplace rolled out Horizon in 1999, and proof is proving tough to search out.
MPs on the Enterprise and Commerce Choose Committee have beforehand really useful adjustments to compensation schemes to offer claimants higher advantage of the doubt when making use of for redress, however these had been rejected by the federal government.
In April 2025, committee chair Liam Byrne MP mentioned: “The brand new authorities has made extraordinarily necessary progress in accelerating redress funds to the victims of the largest miscarriage of justice in British authorized historical past. However too many are nonetheless ready too lengthy, and former subpostmasters are nonetheless dying earlier than they obtain justice. That’s fallacious.”
Individually, there are additionally requires the federal government to legislate to overturn convictions that had been based mostly on the Put up Workplace’s defective Seize system, in the identical method it did for many who had been convicted of monetary crimes based mostly on proof from the Horizon system.
Appellants searching for to clear their names should discover proof that they used the software program from the Nineteen Nineties.
At present, 29 appeals are being reviewed by the Felony Instances Overview Fee (CCRC), however the course of is gradual, and the Put up Workplace has mentioned it can contest appeals.
It was introduced in July final 12 months that the attraction towards the 1998 conviction of 1 former Seize person, Patricia Owens, who died in 2003, was to be despatched to the Court docket of Attraction by the CCRC, but it surely wasn’t despatched till October, the place it sits now.
Former subpostmaster Steve Marston, who was convicted in 1997, put in his attraction to the CCRC in December 2024, however remains to be ready for a call.
The Put up Workplace Horizon scandal was first uncovered by Laptop Weekly in 2009, revealing the tales of seven subpostmasters and the issues they suffered attributable to accounting software program (see beneath timeline of all Laptop Weekly articles concerning the Horizon scandal, since 2009).
