Subpostmaster federation accepted cash from Fujitsu in run-up to Excessive Courtroom Put up Workplace trial

Fujitsu sponsored an annual occasion held by the Nationwide Federation of Subpostmasters (NFSP) simply months earlier than a Excessive Courtroom trial examined claims that its system wrecked the lives of subpostmasters.

A doc in regards to the annual NFSP convention, which was held in Nottingham in February 2018, acknowledged that Fujitsu was sponsoring a night occasion in the course of the convention.

The NFSP did not help subpostmasters and defended the Fujitsu system in the course of the authorized battle, which started later that 12 months.

When the convention was held, the Excessive Courtroom battle was approaching. Planning for authorized motion by affected subpostmasters started in 2015. In January 2017, the group litigation order (GLO) was given the go-ahead, and it started in November 2018.

The courtroom case noticed subpostmasters attempt to show, towards big monetary odds, that the Fujitsu Horizon system utilized in Put up Workplace branches was accountable for unexplained accounting shortfalls that that they had been blamed for. Many have been prosecuted and wrongly convicted of economic crimes in consequence, in what’s as we speak extensively referred to as the Put up Workplace Horizon scandal.

The NFSP didn’t help the motion introduced by Sir Alan Bates and 554 different claimants, and didn’t endorse the claims towards Fujitsu’s system. The organisation has been accused of taking the Put up Workplace’s facet because of its monetary reliance on it.

GLO managing choose Peter Fraser stated in his judgment: “The NFSP will not be remotely unbiased of the Put up Workplace, nor does it seem to place its members’ pursuits above its personal separate industrial pursuits.”

The 2018 annual convention itinerary doc reveals the NFSP was accepting sponsorship from Fujitsu.

Subpostmasters gained the courtroom case, which resulted in December 2019. That victory paved the way in which for wrongful convictions to be overturned, the statutory public inquiry and the ITV drama that widened public consciousness of the Put up Workplace scandal.

The NFSP later stated it had been misled by the Put up Workplace in regards to the robustness of Fujitsu’s Horizon system.

However as just lately as final 12 months, George Thomson, NFSP normal secretary from 2007 to 2018, informed the Put up Workplace Horizon scandal statutory public inquiry that the Horizon system was strong whereas he headed up the organisation. In his witness assertion, he wrote: “The sheer quantity of transactions towards the small proportion of claims proves past any doubt that the system was strong.”

That is regardless of subpostmasters contacting him straight on quite a few events to elucidate the difficulties they have been having with the system, and the landmark Excessive Courtroom judgment in 2019 that discovered the Horizon system was not strong.

The NFSP was unavailable for remark when this text was revealed, however talking following Thomson’s proof final 12 months, present NFSP CEO Calum Greenhow stated: “The NFSP of as we speak was shocked by the proof given by Thomson on the inquiry. That is particularly so given the quantity of people that suffered because of the Horizon scandal, and the clear proof on the inquiry which reveals that Horizon was not ‘strong’.

“It’s clear that extra may and will have been executed for them and for others. Sadly, as a result of Mr Thomson’s place on Horizon throughout his time as normal secretary, this didn’t occur, and for that we’re really sorry.”

The Put up Workplace scandal was first uncovered by Pc Weekly in 2009, when it revealed the tales of seven subpostmasters and the issues they suffered as a result of accounting software program (see timeline of Pc Weekly articles in regards to the scandal under).