A petition calling for ex-Post Office chief Paula Vennells to be stripped of her CBE over the Horizon scandal has passed one million signatures.
By 6am on Monday, it had attracted some 1,000,005 signatures as the nation reels in revulsion at the treatment of sub-postmasters and postmistresses wrongly prosecuted for fraud.
North Durham Labour MP Kevan Jones, one of the parliamentarians who has helped to expose the scandal, said: “Vennells has been the one who is the most high profile.
“But if you look through this scandal there is a whole number of individuals who have questions to answer.”
As well as other Post Office executives, Fujitsu bosses are in the firing line, as well as possibly some of the solicitors who prosecuted sub-postmasters and postmistresses, if it were to turn out that they knew the Horizon computer may be to blame.
A string of ministers, including Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, are also in the spotlight, with questions over whether they should have asked more questions about the cases.
It comes as Metropolitan Police detectives investigate “potential fraud offences” committed during the Horizon scandal.
More than 700 branch managers were handed criminal convictions after faulty Fujitsu accounting software made it appear as though money was missing from their outlets.
It has been described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history and a public inquiry into it is ongoing.
Professor Chris Hodges, chair of the Horizon compensation advisory board, said Parliament should pass a “simple act” to clear all of the postmasters and postmistresses convicted based on evidence supplied by the flawed computer system.
“A number of things could happen, you could propose a number of improvements to the current appeals system,” he told BBC Radio 4.
“The trouble is either individually or collectively they don’t necessarily deliver the outcome we all want to see, which is that all of these convictions are overturned.
“Therefore having looked at this we have come to the conclusion that the obvious thing to do is the right thing to do, which is for Parliament to pass a very simple act overturning all of them.
“The trouble is otherwise you get into the weeds of an enormously slow and complex system.”
Ms Vennells, who formerly served as a parish priest, left the Post Office with a CBE for services to the organisation as well as charity and a £389,000 bonus.
Scotland Yard confirmed on Friday evening that officers are “investigating potential fraud offences arising out of these prosecutions”, for example “monies recovered from sub-postmasters as a result of prosecutions or civil actions”.
The Met has already been looking into potential offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice in relation to investigations and prosecutions carried out by the Post Office.
Two people have been interviewed under caution but nobody has been arrested since the investigation was launched in January 2020.
The petition took off after ITV aired a drama into the scandal, Mr Bates Vs The Post Office starring actor Toby Jones, 50 new potential victims have approached lawyers, it has been said.
Neil Hudgell, executive chairman of Hudgell Solicitors, who has, so far, helped 73 former subpostmasters to have convictions related to the scandal quashed, told the PA news agency: “Our clients welcome the statement from the Met.
“They want to see people properly held to account for proven wrongdoing in the prosecution and financial ruin of so many of them.
“They have complete faith in the public inquiry in the search for answers as to who knew what and when and who made the decisions on the back of that to press forward with wrongful prosecutions and civil recoveries.
“They have waited two decades for this all to unravel and will let the inquiry reach its conclusions so that the police investigation can be best informed as to what follows then.
“The drama has elevated public awareness to a whole new level. The British public and their overwhelming sympathy for the plight of these poor people has given some the strength to finally come forward.
“Those numbers increase by the day, but there are so many more out there. We had 50 up to yesterday and approaching another 20 today.”
Former subpostmaster Lee Castleton, from Bridlington, East Yorkshire, who is a victim of the scandal, told Times Radio his family’s lives were “torn apart” by the ordeal.
“We were ostracised in Bridlington. We were abused in the streets. Our daughter was bullied. She was on the school bus and spat on by a young boy because (they thought) her father was a thief, and he’d take money from old people,” he said.
Mr Castleton was pursued by the Post Office for the repayment of £25,000 in alleged discrepancies arising from the faulty Horizon software, and his failed legal action to challenge the debt let to £300,000 costs and bankruptcy.
He sa: “It’s about accountability. Let’s find out where the money went. There’s millions of pounds that were washed into the profit and loss accounts over many years.
“Let’s see who made those decisions and made this happen. Hopefully we’ll get some accountability and find out some names.”
The Criminal Cases Review Commission has described the Horizon scandal as “the most widespread miscarriage of justice” it has ever seen.
In 1999, the Post Office introduced a brand-new way of cataloguing payments: the Horizon IT system.
It was intended to be a way to modernise the organisation, moving it from paper-based records into the upcoming 21st century.
But the Horizon IT system was faulty, prone to glitches which incorrectly exhibited shortfalls of cash that were blamed on the sub-postmasters in charge of their branches, leading to two decades of legal disputes, hundreds of wrongful convictions and untold lives destroyed.
The CCRC has urged more potential victims to come forward saying that it “might be able to help if your appeal was unsuccessful, or if you pleaded guilty in a magistrates’ court, or if you are a close relative of a former sub-postmaster who has died”.
