Business correspondent
Getty imagesThe post office Horizon IT Scandal incorrectly had a “destructive” effect on the accused people and prosecuted for criminal offenses, the first report has been found in the scam from the first report.
The report by Sir Vyan Williams showed that the victims wrongly prosecuted their branch accounts due to hundreds of sub-postmasters, as well as others.
Sir Varan said that at least 59 people considered suicide at various points, of which 10 tried to kill, and more than 13 people could have killed themselves due to the scam.
The post office apologized “unreserved” and said it would carefully consider the report.
This first section of Sir Van’s report, presented at the Oval Cricket Ground in London, also focuses on issues around compensation along with the human impact of the scam.
The victims had divorced, suffering severe mental health issues and alcohol addiction, as a result of their ordinances, were found in investigation.
“Many persons said that they could not sleep at night without PA. A postmistress said she had gone to rehabilitate for eight months as the post office had replaced her to drink to deal with the loss,” Sir Van wrote.
The report contains a series of immediate recommendations, including:
- Free legal advice for contenders
- Compensation payment for family members close to affected people
- Fujitsu, a program of restorative justice with a meeting of individual victims from Post Office and Government directly
Sir Van also criticized “malignant difficulties” around the distribution of financial prevention to the victims, which is currently held around three separate schemes.
He criticized the speed of compensation, saying that it was not “immediately” for many contenders.
Discussing a plan, for those who had experienced an unexplained shortage related to the horizon, but were not convicted, Sir Vyan says: “I have been persuaded that in difficult and adequate claims, on many occasions, on many occasions, the post office and its advisors have adopted an unnecessarily adverse attitude to make preliminary proposals.”
According to the report, 10,000 eligible people are currently claiming prevention, and Sir Vyan hopes that the number will increase with “at least hundreds” in the coming months.
He called upon the government to publicly define what “complete and fair financial prevention” meant and recommended changes in some plans.
Sir Vyan will see how the scam took place and who was responsible in the later report.
But in this first part, he said that he was satisfied that senior employees of the post office were aware, or they should have known that an old version of the horizon software was able to give incorrect data.
He said that many post offices and Fujitsu employees knew that the subsequent version of the software had “bugs, errors and faults” that could affect the branch accounts.
Sir Van has asked the government to respond to its conclusions after October 2025.
The government said that some members of the families of the horizon victims would be eligible for compensation.
Post Office minister Gareth Thomas said the plan would be “open to the family members of the current horizon contenders who suffered individual injuries – including psychological crisis – because their relative’s misery”.
But he said that the government would need a written evidence of “except exceptional circumstances” at that time.
He said that “some very difficult issues raise” while preparing such a plan “.
“Nevertheless, we want to take care of family members who were the most suffering,” he said.
A post office spokesperson said: “The investigation has brought the destructive stories of the people affected by the Kshitij scam to life. Their experiences represent a shameful period in our history.
“Today, we apologize unreserved for the pain that postmasters and their loved ones were due to the post office. We will carefully consider the report and its recommendations.”
The report has so far given details of some legal costs of various compensation schemes.
The newly published government figures have increased the total legal costs paid to the operational distribution of “horizon prevention schemes” to £ 100 meters.
For their work on the horizon shortage plan by 2 December 2024, Law firm Herbert Smith Freehils was paid £ 67m by the post office.
Post office campaigner and former sub-postmistress Joe Hamilton said it was “just crazy” that the government is spending millions on lawyers, which is to separate the claims, which they have paid to bring.
He said that the report was “huge” on Tuesday as it had bare the scale of grief.
She says who is guilty for that grief, the investigation will be “interesting”.
