Fujitsu staff under investigation for potential perjury in Post Office IT trial named
Summary
Documents revealed in the Court of Appeal have named two former Fujitsu staff under investigation by police for potential perjury in the trials of subpostmasters prosecuted for financial crimes. The trial, which concluded in December 2019, proved subpostmasters were right that errors in the Horizon IT system provided by Fujitsu were causing unexplained losses. “Prior to the group litigation, expert evidence was given to the Crown Court by Fujitsu witnesses, and also to the High Court in at least one case, that there were no widespread bugs, errors or defects in Horizon.” Fraser told the DPP that documents disclosed as part of the Horizon trial “clearly show that Fujitsu knew about the existence of bugs, errors and defects in Horizon from a very early stage in the life of the system”. A Computer Weekly investigation in 2009 revealed that subpostmasters, who run Post Office branches, were being blamed for unexplained financial losses, which they claimed were caused by errors made by the Horizon system. Hundreds of subpostmasters were subsequently prosecuted for theft and false accounting, with prison sentences, community service, criminal records and heavy fines among the injustices they suffered as a result.