Post Office must fully compensate every wronged worker, say MPs
MPs have called for the Post Office to “fully compensate” hundreds of sub-postmasters and mistresses who lost thousands of pounds because of an IT glitch.
A report by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) committee said the Government should create an independent body to support those who have not yet come forward for adequate compensation.
Labour MP Darren Jones, chair of the committee, said: “The Government and the Post Office must speed up their efforts to deliver full, fair and final compensation for every victim.
“It is unacceptable that 555 victims who first brought this scandal successfully to court are being left in a worse position than those who are being compensated thanks to their action.
“There is no valid reason to exclude the 555 from being fully compensated and the Chancellor must come forward with the required funding now.”
Several sub-postmasters and mistresses sued the Post Office. When the series of lengthy civil cases came to an end in December 2019, the company agreed to settle with 555 victims. They paid £58million in damages, of which the claimants shared £12million after legal fees.
BEIS said this left £20,000 for each person, despite their losses estimated to be more than £100,000. More than 700 sub-postmasters and mistresses prosecuted between 2000 and 2014 had installed the Horizon IT system, which was maintained by Fujitsu.
In December 2019 a High Court judge ruled that Horizon contained a number of “bugs, errors and defects” and there was a “material risk” that shortfalls in accounts were caused by the system.
The High Court overturned the convictions of 39 sub-postmasters and mistresses last April. Speaking to an inquiry into the scandal yesterday, former subpostmaster Harjinder Butoy, 45, said he “fell apart” when he was wrongfully convicted for stealing more than £200,000.
He was jailed for three years and three months and was given a £60,000 confiscation order.
Mr Butoy, who ran the post office in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Notts, with his wife, went on to describe his “terrible” ordeal in prison, where he lost more than six stone.
The inquiry, which is expected to run for the rest of this year, is looking into whether the Post Office knew about faults in the IT system and will also ask how staff were made to take the blame.