Victims of Post Office scandal could be blocked from compensation

Victims of the Post Office scandal could be blocked from getting compensation, the head of inquiry into the fiasco warns

• Read more: Post Office victims bankrupted by IT scandal will get extra payout 

Victims of the Post Office scandal are potentially being blocked from getting compensation, the head of the inquiry into the fiasco has said.

Sir Wyn Williams said his previous concerns about delays in the running of three separate compensation schemes for those affected remain valid, as he called for a resolution to the issues.

The inquiry chairman said in an update yesterday: ‘What has emerged is a patchwork quilt of compensation schemes. And, unfortunately, it is a patchwork quilt with some holes in it.’

Sir Wyn said he was so struck by the evidence from those caught up in the scandal that he brought forward recommendations in an interim report into compensation presented to Parliament.

He said: ‘Such evidence left me in no doubt that there was a compelling need to provide compensation to all those who had suffered loss and damage which properly reflected their pecuniary and non-pecuniary losses.’

Victims of the Post Office scandal are potentially being blocked from getting compensation [File image]

A handful took their own lives long before a High Court judge ruled in 2019 that the system contained ‘bugs, errors and defects’

More than 700 Post Office managers – also known as sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses – were prosecuted between 2000 and 2014 based on information on a faulty accounting system known as Horizon.

The software gave the false impression money was missing from individual branches, leading to many workers ending up with criminal convictions for fraud and false accounting.

A handful took their own lives long before a High Court judge ruled in 2019 that the system contained ‘bugs, errors and defects’.

READ MORE: The Post Office covered up the prosecutions of hundreds of innocent postmasters for fraud

The ruling meant many of those affected by the scandal were able to have their convictions overturned.

The Horizon affair is considered the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history, leading to the inquiry into what went wrong, and who was responsible.

Sir Wyn said one of the compensation avenues, the Historical Shortfall Scheme launched in 2020, left him ‘with the distinct impression that the most complex cases have not been addressed as speedily as might have been the case’.

He issued eight recommendations to the Government in an attempt to ensure ‘full and fair’ compensation is paid to those affected.

He said: ‘The evidence upon me hasn’t changed. It hasn’t lessened to a degree.

‘Many hundreds of people suffered disastrous consequences by reason of the misuse of data from Horizon, and thousands more suffered very significantly.’

As of April 6, the Post Office had paid out more than £80 million across the Historical Shortfall Scheme and the Overturned Historic Convictions Scheme.

The Government had paid an additional £19 million in interim compensation under the Group Litigation Scheme by the same date.

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