Fujitsu Europe’s boss has admitted the firm has a “moral obligation” to contribute to compensation for sub-postmasters wrongly prosecuted as a result of its faulty IT software.
Fujitsu Europe director Paul Patterson opened yesterday’s appearance before the parliamentary Business and Trade Committee with an apology for the “appalling miscarriage of justice” suffered by postmasters as public and political anger continues over the Horizon scandal, catalysed by the New Year’s Day screening of the ITV dramatisation Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
Patterson also confirmed that the tech giant had “helped” the Post Office to prosecute sub-postmasters: “We were involved from the very start. We did have bugs and errors in the system. And we did help the Post Office in their prosecutions of sub-postmasters. For that we are truly sorry,” he told MPs.
Meanwhile in Davos, Fujitsu’s global chief Takahito Tokita, told the BBC that his firm “apologised for the impact on the postmasters’ lives and their families,” but declined to confirm it would return any of the money it earned from the flawed Horizon system.
Making his first public comments since the Toby Jones-starring drama sent the 24-year-fomenting scandal rocketing up the news agenda Tokita said: “This is a big issue, which Fujitsu takes very seriously.”
“Fujitsu has apologised for the impact on the postmasters’ lives and their families.”
The BBC said Tokita had previously turned down six interview requests, most recently last week.
Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses were prosecuted for theft and false accounting after money appeared to be missing from their branches, but the prosecutions were based on evidence from Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon software.
Some sub-postmasters were wrongfully sent to prison, many were financially ruined. At least 60 have since died.
The scandal has been described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British legal history, but to date only 93 convictions have been overturned and thousands of people are still waiting for compensation settlements more than 20 years on.
When prosecutions were taking place, Fujitsu had told the Post Office that no-one, apart from sub-postmasters themselves, could access or alter Horizon records, meaning the blame for mistakes could only rest with sub-postmasters, but that turned out to be untrue.
Former North Wales sub-postmaster Alan Bates, whose relentless campaigning inspired the ITV drama, told the committee: “People are suffering, they’re dying…There is no reason at all why full financial redress shouldn’t have been delivered by now.”
