The Metropolitan Police is investigating crimes related to Post Office Horizon. One hundred officers are working on the criminal investigation.
Operation Olympos, a Met investigation, has already identified scores of persons of interest.
The Horizon scandal, which began in 1999 when Fujitsu rolled out a flawed computer system, continued until 2019. In 2019, the judge in a group litigation case found that the subpostmasters contracts were unfair and that Horizon contained “bugs, errors, and defects”.
In those 20 years, hundreds of subpostmasters were wrongly charged with fraud because the Post Office refused acknowledge that its own accounting software caused shortfalls.
The first phase of the investigation by police will be to identify “key individuals”, who are involved in prosecutions against subpostmasters. Phase two will investigate wider crimes.
Police commander Stephen Clayman said that the scale of the investigation was unprecedented. “I am confident that we have an excellent, well-trained team, and cutting-edge technologies to support our search for evidence and information in the 1.5 million documents and more obtained, which will continue to grow.
He said that thousands of victims could be identified if the Post Office’s criminal prosecutions and private claims, civil suits and contract cancellations are taken into consideration.
In 2020, the Met began investigating evidence of perjury by Fujitsu staff. These possible crimes occurred during subpostmaster trials prosecuted for accounting errors. The evidence of software engineers Gareth Jenkins, Anne Chambers and others was reviewed.
Clayman said that under Operation Olympos individuals will be investigated for potential perjury or perverting justice. According to Computer Weekly he has not ruled out an investigation into Post Office’s policy that forces subpostmasters repay unaccounted for shortfalls. This could be fraud. In October, the public inquiry heard that between 1999 and 2015, about PS36m was taken by Post Office from subpostmasters who were forced to cover unrealized shortfalls on their accounts.
As the investigation progresses, it may include employees and partners of law firm involved in wrongful prosecutions. Clayman said that police would wait until the Post Office Horizon final public inquiry report is released before making any final decisions about charging.
On 16 and 17th December, the public enquiry into Post Office scandal will conclude with closing statements.
Computer Weekly first reported on the Post Office scandal in 2009.
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