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Postmasters who were victims of faulty accounting software before the Horizon scandal have been promised redress by ministers.
The business secretary has recognised that Capture, the system which came before Horizon, could have also created accounting shortfalls for sub-postmasters who used it.
Jonathan Reynolds on Tuesday promised to “work quickly to provide redress and justice to those who have suffered greatly after being wrongly accused”.
Capture was rolled out in Post Office branches in 1992, before being replaced by Fujitsu’s Horizon software in 1999.
The Post Office-Horizon scandal saw hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongfully convicted of fraud, theft and false accounting over more than a decade.
Many lost their livelihoods, their life savings, their reputations and even went to jail.
A lengthy public inquiry into the scandal has revealed the Horizon software was faulty and created false shortfalls in their accounts.
As of this month, £500m has been paid out to 3,300 victims across a series of compensation schemes.
Ministers commissioned an independent report into Capture earlier this year after postmasters came forward claiming they had suffered similar problems to those faced by the Horizon victims.
The Kroll report concluded that the older software could have created shortfalls.
Mr Reynolds said it was “thanks to the testimony of postmasters that this has been brought to light and failings have been discovered”.
He added: “We must now work quickly to provide redress and justice to those who have suffered greatly after being wrongly accused.
“I’d like to encourage anyone who believes they have been affected by Capture to share their story with us so we can put wrongs to right once and for all.”
The government is working out the scale and scope of financial redress for those who might be victims of Capture’s faults.
But ministers face a series of challenges as they seek to remunerate victims. And, in a damning warning, Lord Arbuthnot, who campaigned for wrongly convicted subpostmasters, said the Horizon scandal could easily happen again.
He told Times Radio: “Mostly because this started as a technology issue with the Horizon software and hardware but it rapidly became a matter of human behaviour and throughout this process we’ve had to deal with the human condition of believing what we want to believe, of listening to the groupthink of everybody else.
“And that human condition has not changed and we’ve got to be aware of our failings. But our failings don’t go away.”
Evidence which could help to reveal the extent of shortfalls has been lost or destroyed, sub-postmasters may have died because of how long ago the system was in use, and there were at least 19 versions of Capture being utilised.
It is also uncertain how many criminal prosecutions were based on evidence from the Capture system, meaning it would be difficult to back up any claims for compensation.
However, the Post Office has indicated it has records of convictions and prosecutions from the period, and ministers have asked it to review the records and send them to the Criminal Cases Review Commission – the body responsible for investigating miscarriages of justice in England and Wales – as well as its Scottish counterpart.
Post Office minister Gareth Thomas said his priority is “to deliver justice and redress to postmasters as swiftly as possible”.
He added: “We will do everything we can to correct the mistakes of the past and ensure they are not repeated.
“Postmasters have raised concerns with me that their income has not kept up with inflation over the past decade. The Government therefore welcomes that the Post Office is going to make a one-off payment to postmasters to increase their remuneration.”
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