The Criminal Cases Review Commission has described it as the most widespread miscarriage of justice it has ever seen. On one side is the Post Office, wholly owned by the government and ultimately accountable to the business secretary and prime minister, and its giant multinational IT subcontractor Fujitsu. On the other, the hundreds of post office operators who were convicted of false accounting, theft and fraud as a result of bug-ridden software that wrongly made it look as though money had disappeared on their watch – and who were aggressively pursued through the courts by the Post Office.
People took their own lives, countless more had their lives and businesses ruined by prosecutions and convictions, and many were sent to prison despite their innocence. Years later, some have died before receiving any compensation amid significant delays, hundreds of unsafe convictions are still to be overturned, and those responsible are yet to be held properly accountable.
