Blair ‘ knew of Post Office’s IT f laws but went ahead anyway’

TONY Blair gave the order to build the computer system at the heart of the Post Office IT scandal despite being warned it was ‘increasingly flawed’, according to a report.

The Labour prime minister ‘ received multiple communications’ about the ‘chequered history’ of the Horizon accounting system, but went ahead anyway.

Between 2000 and 2015, thousands of postmasters were accused of thieving from their own tills when unexplained ‘shortfalls’ appeared in the accounts.

Dozens of bugs in the Horizon system, which digitised post office accounting for the first time, were to blame. More than 700 people were wrongfully convicted, with some going to jail, while at least four people took their own lives after being hounded for repayments.

The report, passed to the Daily Mail, claims to show Mr Blair pushed ahead despite being given the option to renegotiate or cancel the Horizon contract.

Its author Eleanor Shaikh, who has campaigned for Horizon victims, said: ‘Tony Blair made the decision on more than one occasion. In 1998 he gave his authorisation to extend the project, and he made a final decision to go ahead... One has to understand who put this nightmare in place, and who set this off on this trajectory of disaster.’

Tory peer Lord Arbuthnot said the report’s findings ‘make the scandal all the more dreadful’. The report has been lodged with the Post Office Inquiry, which will hear evidence about decisions made in the early days of the Horizon IT system next month.

It cites a briefing note, released to The National Archives, from former No 10 policy head Geoff Mulgan who warned the Horizon project had been ‘beset by problems’ and was seen ‘as a flawed system’. Horizon had already been scrapped by another government department after concerns were raised in testing.