More than 700 workers from the Post Office were falsely convicted of stealing company finances due to a fault in a new IT system. The incorrect system led to bankruptcy and loss of liberty as many innocent people were put in prison.
The scandal has now exceeded 20 years and currently no one from the Post Office or from Fujitsu, the Japanese software company have been held accountable.
It is hoped that the newly launched public inquiry into the scandal will bring the correct people to justice.
Counsel to the public inquiry, Jason Beer QC said: “Lives were ruined, families were torn apart, families were made homeless and destitute.
“A number of men and women sadly died before the state publicly recognised that they were wrongfully convicted.”
A businesswoman in the audience of Question Time expressed her empathy for the victims.
She said: “I feel for the people that have found themselves in this situation.
“It’s gone on for far too many years. There have been serious circumstances, suicides as a result of it. Families completely ruined.”
Panellist Frances O’Grady who worked with victims of disasters such as Grenfell, Covid bereavement and Hillsborough commented on the appalling amount of time that has passed with this scandal.
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She said: “The same pattern seems to be that it gets spun out and spun out and very often the people who were looking for justice over time pass away…it sometimes seems like this is a deliberate strategy to take as long as possible to get people the justice that they deserve.”
The audience member added: “Somebody has to be held to account, somebody has to pay in the way that those people had to pay in prison.
“I think that includes probably people at Fujitsu, people at the Post Office and also potentially the CPS should’ve realised that there were an awful lot of cases relying upon the same evidence.”
Jurgen Maier, an industrialist and former chief executive of Siemens UK, also appeared on the programme and agreed with the audience member saying that “some alarm bells should have been ringing.”
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He called for “proper openness and transparency” and an “independent investigation” to give justice to those victims who are still able to.
He added that “the pressure should be kept up” to hold people accountable.
Jake Berry, Conservative MP on the show, stated that compensatory money to the victims “should come from the Post Office and Fujitsu” as there was no reason “why the taxpayer should be forking out for a problem caused by Fujitsu.”
Mr Berry concluded by calling for a “proper independent inquiry to make sure that this miscarriage of justice this travesty this disgrace against people in the post office can never happen again in any other organisation.”
