A Fujitsu boss has apologised to subpostmasters and said the tech company has a "moral obligation" to contribute to the compensation scheme as he appeared before MPs on Tuesday.
The Japanese tech company's Europe director Paul Patterson said he was "truly sorry" to the more than 700 subpostmasters handed criminal convictions after Fujitsu’s faulty software made it appear as though money was missing at their branches.He appeared before MPs at the Commons’ Business and Trade Committee, which is examining what more can be done to deliver compensation for victims of what has been labelled one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history.
Mr Patterson said: "To the subpostmasters and their families, Fujitsu would like to apologise for our part in this appalling miscarriage of justice.
"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 subpostmasters. For that we are truly sorry."
He added that there is a "moral obligation for the company to contribute" to payouts for victims, but the company has not yet made the provisions.
Mr Patterson said: "When this is done, we also expect to sit down with Government to determine our contribution to the redress.
"We have not made provision for that yet. I can't put a number on that yet, but when we get to that position we will absolutely have to make a provision for it."
It comes as the public inquiry into the scandal heard that Fujitsu technicians knew about problems with the Horizon IT system from at least 2010 while subpostmasters were being wrongly prosecuted for stealing money from the Post Office.
Internal records from the tech firm which created Horizon reveal discussions about “duplicate transactions” within the troubled IT system, efforts being made to fix problems, and fears that the issues – if revealed – could lead to a “legal challenge”.
One of the documents from June 2010 refers to “occasional duplicate transactions listed on spreadsheets produced and presented to court for prosecution cases”, and raises the concern that they may be “spotted” by defence lawyers representing accused subpostmasters and used to “question the evidence”.
“If we don’t fix the problem, the spreadsheets presented to court are liable to be brought into doubt if duplicate transactions are spotted”, it was noted.
Rajbinder Sangha, who was part of Fujitsu’s Fraud and Litigation Support Office, told the inquiry she was “not made aware” of the problems with Horizon when she joined the department in 2010.
Asked if that concerned her, she replied: “It does, because obviously I didn’t realise with the data there were these issues.”
Ms Sangha, who continues to work for the Japanese tech company, said she was involved in providing audit data from Horizon to support criminal prosecutions.
Bosses of the Post Office and Fujitsu appeared before MPs alongside lawyers for the victims and the former subpostmasters who has led the campaign for justice in the Horizon scandal.
Lawyers acting for the sub-postmasters told the Committee that just three people convicted in the scandal had received a full and final settlement, years after the landmark cases that proved their innocence,
Dr Neil Hudgell, who represented victims, told MPs that while most of the postmasters had received some sort of interim compensation just three had been "fully paid out".
Between 28 to 30 people have accepted, but not yet received, the "fixed £600,000" payout, he added.
Asked by MPs what role Fujitsu should play in providing compensation for people "who have had their lives destroyed", Dr Hudgell said the company should be involved but "ultimately this is not about a flawed IT system" but the decisions made "on the back of that flawed IT system".
Many of his clients suffered from mental health issues as a result of the scandal, he said, and what they need is "accountability".
The long-running battle for justice accelerated dramatically after the public outcry provoked by the ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office.
Alan Bates, the campaigning former subpostmaster on whom the series centred, told the Committee hearing that his focus was on pushing for swift compensation for the victims and that there were likely more victims of the Horizon scandal still out there.
He said he was “frustrated” with the compensation scheme.
“There is no reason at all why full financial address should not have been delivered by now," he said.
"It’s gone on for far too long. People are suffering, they are dying, we are losing numbers along the way. And it just seems to be tied up in bureaucracy.”
Mr Bates also told MPs that the Post Office publicised the prosecutions of sub-postmasters as "examples of warnings to others to keep your head down and do as you're told".
He added: "There are people contacting me now who have had loses over the years...I'm sending them on to lawyers.
"Yes, they are starting to come through again."
Former sub-postmaster Jo Hamilton, who was falsely accused of stealing £36,000, said: "I had a text in the taxi on the way over this morning from someone who had been to prison and so I'm going to pass her onto [lawyers].
"I think there are people out there."
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last week announced that the wrongly prosecuted in England and Wales could have their names cleared by the end of the year under fast-tracked legislation after growing pressure to take more serious action.
Those whose convictions are quashed are eligible for a £600,000 compensation payment, while Mr Sunak offered £75,000 to subpostmasters involved in group legal action against the Post Office.
The Prime Minister has faced calls to go further and bar Fujitsu from securing Government contracts and pursue the firm for compensation payments.
The Horizon software started to be rolled out in Post Office branches across the UK in 1999 and over the subsequent years a series of subpostmasters were prosecuted over missing funds.
In 2019 the High Court ruled that Horizon contained a number of “bugs, errors and defects” and there was a “material risk” that shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts were caused by the system.
More than a dozen former postal affairs ministers, including Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, have faced questions over why they did not do more which might have exposed the scandal earlier.
