By BBC (Business) | Created at 2024-12-11 16:54:04 | Updated at 2024-12-23 03:55:53
1 week ago
Police investigating crimes linked to the Post Office Horizon IT scandal are looking at "dozens" of potential suspects, but don't expect trials to begin until 2027.
Police are investigating possible crimes by Post Office and Fujitsu employees and external lawyers, following the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of subpostmasters after faulty Horizon software said money was missing from their Post Office branch accounts.
Three suspects have already been interviewed under caution and there are plans to interview others next year, according to police.
But no one will be charged until officers have read the final report from the separate public inquiry, almost 30 years after concerns were first raised.
Lee Castleton, a sub-Postmaster from Bridlington in North Yorkshire who was bankrupted in 2004 after losing a two-year battle with the Post Office over Horizon, said: "I can't understand why it's taken so long, I can't understand why things are having to be gone over and over and over... But you know, never give in, we'll get there."
The first media reports of Horizon problems were published by Computer Weekly in 2009. Alan Bates and his fellow sub-postmasters' won the first of their two High Court victories in March 2019, eight years before the first criminal trials are set to begin.
Some 100 officers from around England and Wales are now working on what they've called Operation Olympos, which began in 2020. The investigation will be led by the Metropolitan Police in London, while Police Scotland, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and National Crime Agency are also involved.
Commander Steve Clayman, who is leading the investigation, said: "We have got, we think, over 3,000 people affected in some way, by Horizon. So it's huge and we have got to put in a commensurate number of officers."
The first phase of the investigation will focus on those making "key decisions" on investigations and prosecutions, looking at possible offences of perjury and the serious offence of perverting the course of justice.
A second phase will cast the net wider, potentially taking in senior post office executives.
Work is already underway on building some of the cases, and police are in regular dialogue with the Crown Prosecution Service.
The first trials may involve cases from either phase, police said, but timescales and the numbers of potential suspects could change as more evidence is gathered.
Officers are already working with 1.5 million documents in the case and expect this number to grow.
The investigation has also launched an online portal to allow sub-postmasters and others to submit evidence to the investigation.
