Submit Workplace scandal may widen to hundreds extra branches after third system attraction
Hundreds extra subpostmasters may very well be discovered to have been victims of the Submit Workplace Horizon scandal after a prison conviction based mostly on a 3rd defective Submit Workplace system is shipped to the Courtroom of Attraction.
Horizon scandal campaigner Jo Hamilton stated she all the time suspected the third system, often known as APS/APT, was inflicting shortfalls that she was unable to determine as a result of an absence of paperwork.
Final week, the Prison Instances Assessment Fee (CCRC) referred the 2001 conviction of former subpostmaster Gareth Snow to the Courtroom of Attraction. The CCRC stated there was proof that the APS/APT, which Snow utilized in his department in Denbighshire, “may trigger accounting errors”.
Tons of of convictions based mostly on proof from the Horizon system have been overturned. In the meantime, one conviction based mostly on proof from a second system often known as Seize has been despatched to the Courtroom of Attraction, and 30 extra are being reviewed.
The primary CCRC referral for a subpostmaster conviction based mostly on APS/APT proof reinforces the view that subpostmasters who skilled issues with any Submit Workplace system are probably victims of the Submit Workplace scandal.
Hundreds extra may very well be affected via APS/APT. In a 1994 information article within the Barry and District Information, Richard Dykes, then managing director at Submit Workplace Counters, was quoted as saying the APS/APT system was already put in in 3,000 Submit Workplace branches, with the purpose of reaching 6,000 over the next 12 months. It included an digital terminal linked to phone strains and was used to hold out transactions corresponding to hire, charges and utility funds.
Not the one one
Rupert Lloyd Thomas, who labored on the Submit Workplace for 30 years from 1974 and has campaigned for customers of the Submit Workplace’s defective Seize system, stated: “The APS/APT referral has opened a complete new can of worms. It’s onerous to imagine that Mr Snow was the one one.”
Campaigning former subpostmaster Jo Hamilton, who had a wrongful conviction based mostly on Horizon proof overturned in a landmark 2021 case, stated she used the APS/APT system within the early 2000s and had suspected it was guilty for shortfalls.
She stated the lack to cross-check transactions made her suspect that it was inflicting unexplained shortfalls. “I all the time thought one thing wasn’t proper with the system’s transactions. I used to marvel if it was including stuff in right here and there that I didn’t learn about, as a result of I didn’t have any slips to test it towards.”
Laptop Weekly requested the Submit Workplace what number of branches used APS/APT, what number of customers of the system had been prosecuted by the Submit Workplace, and whether or not it might assessment all instances of subpostmasters’ shortfalls, not simply prosecutions, that may very well be associated to APS/APT.
However the Submit Workplace stated: “Whereas we can’t touch upon particular person instances, we’ve got been totally cooperating with the CCRC on this pre-Horizon conviction case by supplying paperwork and data the place that is obtainable.”
It was 2009 when Laptop Weekly first informed the tales of subpostmasters who had suffered on account of issues whereas utilizing the Horizon system, utilized in all branches since 2000. It took years of campaigning by subpostmasters, a Excessive Courtroom litigation, a public inquiry and a TV drama to get the general public’s consideration.
Since then, a whole bunch of wrongful convictions have been overturned, and properly over a billion kilos in redress has been paid to victims of the scandal.
It has additionally emerged {that a} Submit Workplace system often known as Seize, utilized in a few thousand branches earlier than Horizon within the Nineteen Nineties, was, like Horizon, susceptible to creating unexplained account shortfalls, for which subpostmasters had been blamed and printed.
A scheme to compensate affected former subpostmasters has been launched.
Now, the APS/APT referral to the Courtroom of Appeals may widen the scandal additional, with hundreds extra individuals probably affected.
There are additionally questions over a system often known as ECCO+, which was used within the Submit Workplace-owned Crown branches within the Nineteen Nineties. In March 2025, the federal government minister in control of the Submit Workplace requested for proof of issues brought on by the software program. The Nationwide Federation of Subpostmasters, working with legislation agency Howe & Co, has already acquired anecdotal proof about issues skilled by customers.
Laptop Weekly first uncovered the scandal in 2009, revealing the tales of seven subpostmasters and the issues they suffered on account of the Horizon system (see beneath a timeline of all articles since 2009).
Additionally learn: What you could know in regards to the Horizon scandal.
