Post Office had deal with Fujitsu to fix Horizon errors 19 years ago

The Submit Workplace and Fujitsu agreed a deal 19 years in the past to repair transaction errors in sub-postmasters’ accounts attributable to bugs within the Horizon IT system, a doc has revealed.An settlement was in place in 2006 for errors attributable to bugs within the software program to be corrected, or for Fujitsu to pay the Submit Workplace as much as £150 per transaction if it failed to take action.The revelation instantly contradicts the Submit Workplace’s claims throughout legal prosecutions – which led to a whole bunch of wrongful convictions and civil circumstances that destroyed livelihoods – that no bugs existed able to inflicting accounting shortfalls.It additionally exhibits the Submit Workplace knew virtually 20 years in the past that Horizon couldn’t at all times be relied upon to document transactions precisely.Between 1999 and 2015, greater than 900 sub-postmasters had been wrongly prosecuted after the defective Horizon IT system made it seem like cash was lacking from department accounts.Some sub-postmasters went to jail, whereas many extra had been financially ruined and misplaced their livelihoods. Others died.It has been described as the most important miscarriage of justice in British authorized historical past and has led to a long-running public inquiry into the scandal.Numerous proof and testimonies have been heard, examined and reported through the inquiry, however a doc which emerged in materials revealed this month contained new, beforehand unknown, data.The doc exhibits that unbeknown to sub-postmasters, the 2 events had a monetary framework in place to handle discrepancies and for Fujitsu to repair issues or pay for them.The Submit Workplace denied all through the legal trials of sub-postmasters that errors or bugs might trigger transaction shortfalls in department accounts. It additionally denied in court docket that department accounts could possibly be remotely altered with out the information of sub-postmasters.The doc signifies the formal industrial association was drawn as much as take care of potential mismatches or “discrepancies” and the place Fujitsu’s system was accountable, it was anticipated to appropriate false transactions or pay “liquidation damages”.The disclosure additionally undermines the Submit Workplace’s declare to the media and earlier than Parliament in 2015 that it was not doable for Fujitsu to change sub-postmasters’s transactions with out their information.”The Submit Workplace performed each the legal trials of postmasters and the group litigation of 2019 on the premise that it knew of no substantial issues with the Horizon system,” stated Paul Marshall, senior barrister for sub-postmasters.”But this exhibits that in 2006 there was a really large, recognised downside with Horizon sustaining information integrity between Submit Workplace department workplaces and Fujitsu,” he added.”The Submit Workplace, for 20 years, was saying the one rationalization for shortfalls in department accounts was postmaster incompetence or dishonesty. “However the upkeep of information integrity was elementary to the Submit Workplace-Fujitsu contract – Fujitsu had been unable to offer or guarantee this.”The doc implicitly acknowledges that information held on Horizon’s servers at Fujitsu’s headquarters might fail to match the transactions sub-postmasters had carried out at their branches.It additionally provides to proof that the Submit Workplace was conscious that the department accounts of sub-postmasters could possibly be remotely accessed. Within the landmark Alan Bates vs Submit Workplace case, for instance, the organisation insisted that the software program couldn’t be accessed remotely by some other celebration.Below the preparations set out within the doc, Fujitsu agreed to hold out a “reconciliation service” with the Submit Workplace’s approval, the place it was required to appropriate errors attributable to bugs or defects or pay as much as £150 per transaction in penalties referred to as “liquidated damages”.The doc is dated 4 months earlier than the Submit Workplace began authorized motion in opposition to sub-postmaster Lee Castleton OBE pursuing him to get well £25,000 of money it alleged was lacking from his department in East Yorkshire. He represented himself in court docket, arguing that issues with Horizon had been guilty, however misplaced and was landed with £321,000 in authorized prices and ended up bankrupt in consequence.Mr Castleton is now suing the Submit Workplace and Fujitsu for damages and stated the doc would assist his battle.”It is a disgusting doc. It is one other instance of the reality being hidden for 20 years. All of the ache and punishment the victims have taken all these years and it was buried,” he informed the BBC.”It makes me really feel bodily in poor health to assume they had been doing that and never telling anybody…it is time they had been held accountable for all these actions.”The doc, first found by Submit Workplace scandal campaigner Stuart Goodwillie, helps what whistleblower Richard Roll informed BBC Panorama in 2015. The previous Fujitsu employee stated the staff engaged on Horizon would typically appropriate 1000’s of transactions per night time as a result of the agency could possibly be pressured to pay money to the Submit Workplace if it failed to take action.The settlement additionally notes that Fujitsu can and can amend transactional information, with the necessity for the Submit Workplace to approve the entries. A later model of the contract has been discovered the place this stipulation has been modified to “the place that is doable”.The doc is listed in an annexe in two company witness statements supplied by Fujitsu’s present European chief govt, Paul Patterson, in 2024 however has solely not too long ago been revealed.The fabric doc has shocked specialists on the scandal akin to Second Sight forensic accountant Ron Warmington, who described the doc’s implications as “dynamite”.A Fujitsu spokesperson stated: “These issues are the topic of forensic investigation by the Submit Workplace Horizon IT Inquiry and it isn’t applicable for us to remark whereas that course of is ongoing.”A Submit Workplace spokesperson stated: “We apologise unequivocally for the harm and struggling which Submit Workplace prompted to so many individuals through the Horizon IT Scandal.”At present, our organisation is concentrated on working transparently with the continued public inquiry, paying full and honest monetary redress to these impacted, and establishing a significant restorative justice programme, all of that are necessary components of the continued transformation of Submit Workplace.”