Rishi Sunak is refusing to ban Fujitsu from getting Government contracts regardless of the agency admitting it knew about faults in its Horizon system that led to postmasters being wrongly prosecuted.
Fujitsu Europe Director Paul Patterson instructed MPs this week the agency was conscious of “bugs and errors” from an “early stage” – and acknowledged it had a “moral obligation” to fund compensation for harmless Post Office employees. But the Prime Minister continues to be insisting ministers wait till the tip of the official Post Office Inquiry, which isn’t as a result of conclude till later this yr, earlier than deciding whether or not to chop ties with the scandal-hit agency.
The PM’s spokesman stated the Government will delay judgement till it has “established the facts and presented all evidence”. It got here as Scotland Yard stated an investigation into potential prison offences linked to the Post Office scandal will take a minimum of till 2026, delaying justice additional for postmasters.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley stated proving prison intent, if it existed, will want an in depth investigation that “won’t be quick”. “We’re now working with police forces across the country to pull together what will have to be a national investigation, which we’ll pull together because there’s hundreds of postmasters and mistresses from across the country,” he told LBC.
“Fujitsu are primarily based in a single a part of the nation and the Post Office is in one other a part of the nation, (it is a) huge piece of labor to do.” He stated there are tens of tens of millions of paperwork to research, including: “And of course, we’ve got to do that following on behind the public inquiry, which I think finishes at the end of this year but won’t publish until late next year.”
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch has requested urgent talks with Fujitsu to hammer out the compensation package for sub-postmasters. No10 confirmed the Department for Business and Trade has “formally started the process of requesting discussions about how we explore” Fujitsu’s contribution to compensation.
But the PM’s spokesman again suggested no action would be taken on this before the end of the official public inquiry as ministers wants to ensure they are “as prepared as possible to act at the appropriate point” after the inquiry establishes the details.
John Simpkins, a group chief inside Fujitsu’s software program assist centre (SSC), stated he and his group “downed instruments” when they realised the Post Office was using filtered data rather than all the available audit data. He told the inquiry: “The SSC determined we’re not pleased doing this filtration if it is going for use in courtroom circumstances and we stopped.”
Fujitsu software developer Gerald Barnes, who also gave evidence today, admitted he thinks subpostmasters should have been informed of errors in the system when they occurred. The inquiry heard that in 2008 he warned a fix was needed to correct an error affecting subpostmasters when they were balancing their accounts in the evening, while in a 2010 statement he warned Fujitsu chiefs the problems with Horizon were “endemic”. His first request was refused because the problems were seen to be a “rarity”.
In a 2013 technical summary, Mr Barnes said a review of the system concluded: “There is a tiny possibility that if an error occurs it will not be reported.” Asked about the possibility of an error occurring and not having been reported, Mr Barnes said: “That’s what it says so it must be the case.”
More than 700 Post Office branch managers were handed criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 after Horizon made it appear as though money was missing from their outlets.