SINCE High Court found bugs not staff to blame

Machine made £1M mistake Probe into 24 new cases

THE dodgy IT system that led to suicide, bankruptcy and unsafe theft convictions among Post Office workers is STILL causing errors of up to £1million.

Staff were blamed for huge shortfalls in their accounts triggered by glitches in a computer program called Horizon.

Hundreds of postmasters and cashiers were jailed, sacked and financially ruined in a scandal spanning 20 years.

The Post Office furiously denied its system was at fault but finally agreed to pay £57.8million compensation to 550 people in a landmark High Court case last December.

Since then at least 24 new incidents have been sent to its complex case team by sub-postmasters disputing losses.

Two sub-postmasters contacted union officials last week to report unexplained discrepancies of about £1,000.

Our investigation also reveals how sub-postmasters are being left out of pocket because they can’t challenge shortfalls of under £150 – even if the IT system is to blame. Some who have disputed larger amounts are in limbo as the Post Office stalls on resolving the cases.

Officials are trying to persuade others who have lost everything to settle out of court for paltry amounts. One sub-postmaster, Martin Griffiths, took his life after Horizon left a £61,000 hole in his accounts.

His devastated sister Jayne Caveen, 58, from Birkenhead, Merseyside, said: “A bloody faulty computer system killed my brother. It is time to really expose the Post Office for ruining countless lives of innocent people.

“Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been handed to the Post Office – money which does not belong to them – because of a computer glitch.”

Martin died in 2013, four years after he started experiencing problems with Horizon at his Chester branch.

Horizon was installed 20 years ago yet, still, one union official receives several complaints a week about it.

Documents show the system wrongly suggested a £480 rent payment processed by one sub-postmaster last weekend was worth £1,018,186.

A clerk noticed the error because of an alert which is generated on transactions worth more than £1,000.

Mark Baker, from the Communication Workers Union, said: “What if the amount had been £999 and it was not spotted by the clerk? This would have gone through and the postmaster would have been short by that amount. I get a message about a Horizon issue on average every other day. It wasn’t designed successfully and it can’t deal with the banking transactions and postage that some post offices process.

“If you were starting afresh today you wouldn’t use it. But the Post Office has an obsession with cutting costs.

“They won’t pay for a dedicated