Pressure on government to pay fair compensation to subpostmasters left out of current schemes

MPs have known as on the government to correctly compensate the group of subpostmasters who fall outdoors established schemes to compensate victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal.

The government minister in cost of the Post Office mentioned he’s working with these left out to resolve unfairness, however a latest letter to the chairman of the group representing the subpostmasters repeated the government’s declare that they don’t seem to be entitled to extra compensation.

In a House of Commons debate, MPs raised the problem of the persevering with unfair remedy of the 555 subpostmasters who took the Post Office to courtroom, at nice monetary expense, to expose the Horizon IT scandal.

Subpostmasters and their workers have been financially ruined after being wrongly blamed and punished for unexplained accounting shortfalls, but regardless of it being proved that the anomalies have been attributable to pc errors, many stay in critical monetary bother.

Victims of the scandal paid again losses that solely existed on the Horizon pc system utilized in branches, many of them having to promote their homes to increase the cash to achieve this. More than 700 subpostmasters have been criminally convicted, many of them despatched to jail.

A High Court group litigation introduced by a gaggle of 555 subpostmasters proved, after years of campaigning, that the pc system utilized in Post Office branches was to blame for losses for which they have been held accountable.

The Post Office settled out of courtroom with the subpostmasters, paying £57.75m damages. But after authorized prices have been paid, the subpostmasters have been left with simply £11m between them, regardless of dropping companies and houses, and having their lives ruined.

After the courtroom victory, the Post Office established a compensation scheme for subpostmasters affected, however barred those that had taken it to courtroom from collaborating. About 2,500 former subpostmasters have been accepted onto what is called the Historic Shortfalls Scheme.

The High Court victory additionally paved the way in which for subpostmasters to have wrongful felony convictions for theft and false accounting overturned. So far, 72 have efficiently appealed and can be compensated by the government. They have been every supplied an interim cost of £100,000.

Some of the 555 are included on this group and can get compensation, however the remaining are excluded from each schemes.

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) minister Paul Scully acknowledged that if weren’t for these 555 victims, the scandal may by no means have been totally revealed. “I recognise what they have done and that none of this would have been possible without their work,” he mentioned. “The 555 performed a massive public service by exposing the wrongdoings of the Post Office and I recognise the deep frustration they have that the settlement with the Post Office is a full and final one and that they don’t qualify for compensation schemes.”

Scully added: “I have met some of those people and will always continue to work with them to see what more we can do.”

But Alan Bates, who chairs the 555’s marketing campaign group, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, mentioned Scully has not been working with the group to resolve this.

In reality, in a letter to Bates simply two weeks in the past, Scully reaffirmed the government’s place that the courtroom settlement of £57.75m was a “full and final” cost. He wrote: “So far as unconvicted subpostmasters who participated in the group litigation are concerned, your organisation has already agreed with the Post Office a full and final settlement, which it is understood to have catered for shortfalls.”

Bates mentioned he believes the 555 are being punished for taking the Post Office to courtroom.

In 2009, a Computer Weekly investigation revealed that subpostmasters have been being blamed for unexplained accounting shortfalls, which started to occur quickly after accounts at branches have been automated by the introduction of the Horizon system from Fujitsu (see timeline under of Computer Weekly articles because it first revealed the Horizon scandal in 2009).