The Post Office Horizon Scandal has a tragic toll resulting in the deaths of more than 13 people by suicide. It has also driven 59 more to contemplate killing themselves.

This was noted in initial findings from a public inquiry labelling the worst miscarriage of justice in UK history. The 162-page volume one report was authored by Sir Wyn Williams, a retired judge who chaired the hearings.

For reference, 1,000 post office operators were prosecuted by the Post Office between 1999 and 2015. Central to the scandal is Fujitsu, the developer of the faulty Horizon IT system. Similarly, Post Office heads either knew or should have known that it wasn’t performing as intended.

Additionally, there was an issue with compensation. It was argued that the Post Office adopted an ‘unnecessarily adversarial attitude’ to those seeking financial redress. This included 10,000 employees, far more than the 1,000 people initially prosecuted.

The Aftermath of the Post Office Horizon Scandal

He acknowledged the ‘disastrous human impact’ the matter had on thousands of post office operators. The document assesses the postmasters wrongly held responsible for issues caused by faulty software.

Williams said that the evidence conveyed a ‘profoundly disturbing’ picture. Four suicides have been blamed on the scandal. However, Williams said at least 13 could be linked to it. The total could even be higher with unreported deaths, he added.

Some have also tried on more than one occasion. The report noted that the thought of suicide ‘was a common experience across both those who were and were not prosecuted.’

The victims ‘had suffered very significantly and many had endured a degree of hardship which was very severe by any standards.’ Some became seriously ill, had issues with mental health, and even bankruptcy.

Even workers who were acquitted found themselves ‘ostracised’ in their communities. Around 350 people passed away prior to even receiving compensation.

Williams’ Solution to the Fallout

He called for urgent action to deliver ‘full and fair’ compensation. He said victims should receive free legal advice, helping them decide between a fixed-sum offer or assessment of their claims. In addition, close family members of those affected should also be compensated.

He added that the government had until 10 October to respond. He also asked the ministers, Post Office, and Fujitsu to outline a programme for restorative justice.

Post Office’s Response to Those Affected

In response to Williams’ findings, chair of Post Office Nigel Railton delivered an apology to those affected by the scandal. On behalf of the company, he admitted ‘as an organisation we let them down’.

He then vowed to do everything in his power to make sure affected branch operators received the redress they were entitled to as soon as possible.

Next Steps For the Matter

Williams’ report follows 225 days of inquiry hearings with 298 witnesses. The total compensation wasn’t detailed yet at the time of writing. As per the government, more than £1 billion has been paid out to more than 7,300 post office operators by 9 June.

In addition, the date hasn’t been set yet for volume two of Williams’ findings. This is slated to cover the technical issues with the Horizon IT system, the Post Office’s handling of the reported discrepancies, and the legal proceedings against the operators. It could come as late as next year.

The chair of the Post Office scandal public inquiry cannot rule out the “real possibility” that 13 people took their own lives as a result of their treatment by the Post Office after they suffered unexplained shortfalls in their branches.

In part one of his much-anticipated report, retired judge Wyn Williams presented his findings from the first phase of the public inquiry, which examined the human impact of the scandal. He also reported on the progress of the compensation schemes being run by the government and the Post Office.

Williams said, “The picture which has emerged and is described in my report is profoundly disturbing.”

In a 162-page report, he said at least 10,000 people have been impacted to different degrees as a result of the flawed Horizon IT system and the Post Office’s response to phantom losses falsely attributed to subpostmasters.

“It is impossible to ascertain, with any degree of accuracy, the number of persons who have suffered as a result of the misplaced reliance upon data produced by Horizon. I can say, however, with a degree of confidence that there are currently about 10,000 eligible claimants in the schemes providing financial redress and that number is likely to rise at least by hundreds, if not more in the coming months,” wrote Williams.

The report revealed that 59 victims have contemplated suicide as a result of their suffering and that although he “cannot make a definitive finding” that there is a “causal connection” between the deaths by suicide of 13 people, he did not rule it out as a “real possibility”. Williams reported that 10 of the 59 people that contemplated suicide attempted to do so, some on more than one occasion.

It quoted one former subpostmaster, who said: “The impact on me of the treatment the Post Office subjected me to has been immeasurable. The mental stress was so great for me that I had a mental breakdown and turned to alcohol as I sunk further into depression. I attempted suicide on several occasions and was admitted to a mental health institution twice.”

The scandal saw hundreds of subpostmasters wrongfully prosecuted due to unexplained account shortfalls that were caused by errors in the Horizon system. Thousands lost their livelihoods and had their lives turned upside down after repaying the unexplained losses.

Many were jailed as a result of the miscarriages of justice and more spent decades struggling to cope with criminal records for crimes they never committed – crimes which were subsequently proved never even took place. It is described as the widest miscarriage of justice in UK history, with 900 wrongful convictions overturned as a result of the scandal being fully exposed.

Referring to “Legacy Horizon” – the first version of the Fujitsu accounting and retail software used until 2010 – Williams wrote in his report that he is “satisfied from the evidence that I have heard that a number of senior, and not so senior, employees of the Post Office knew or, at the very least, should have known that Legacy Horizon was capable of error. Yet, for all practical purposes, throughout the lifetime of Legacy Horizon, the Post Office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate.”

He said that the subsequent version, Horizon Online, “was also, from time to time, afflicted by bugs, errors and defects which had the effect of showing gains and losses in branch and Crown Office accounts which were illusory. I am satisfied that a number of employees of Fujitsu and the Post Office knew that this was so.”

Williams added that, while he initially assumed the current version of Horizon in use at Post Offices “was far more robust,” he has since concluded that, “These assumptions may no longer be wholly justified given evidence provided to the inquiry on behalf of Fujitsu and from postmasters who use this version of Horizon.”

This is the first report to come out from the three-year public inquiry, revealing Williams’ findings on the scandal’s human impact and the state of the compensation schemes set up for Post Office scandal victims. Subsequent reports – expected later this year – will examine the causes of the scandal in more detail, and victims hope Williams will attribute blame for their treatment.

In the first report, Williams also criticised the Post Office’s attitude to compensation: “I am persuaded that in the difficult and substantial claims, on too many occasions, the Post Office and its advisors have adopted an unnecessarily adversarial attitude towards making initial offers, which have had the effect of depressing the level at which settlements have been achieved.”

He called for swift action and demanded the government respond by 10 October and for free legal advice, compensation for family menbers and commitment to “true full and fair compensation.” Williams also said Horizon supplier Fujitsu, the Post Office and the government should publish a report by the end of October which outlines a programme for restorative justice.

In response to the report, Post Office minister Gareth Thomas told Parliament: “I am very sympathetic to Sir Wyn’s 19 recommendations today. Clearly, a number of them require careful consideration. We will respond to them promptly as some concern the ongoing delivery of Horizon redress schemes. Sir Wyn has set us a deadline, and we will meet it.”

Williams’ report focused on 17 case studies of people that suffered at the hands of the Post Office. Its findings are based on the inquiry’s 225 days, 298 witness statements and about 274,000 documents submitted by core participants

The public inquiry had run for nearly two years before mainstream media and the wider public became interested. An ITV dramatisation in January 2024 of the stories of victims, including campaign leader Alan Bates, finally put the scandal at the centre of UK national debate.

The drama featured the story of Martin Griffiths, one of the victims driven to take his own life by the scandal. In September 2013 at the age of 50, he deliberately walked in front of a bus. Griffiths was a subpostmaster in Ellesmere Port, and Williams writes about him in the inquiry report. He suffered for years with problems with the Horizon IT system. He was eventually suspended and given notice of termination by the Post Office. He made substantial payments to the Post Office to cover the apparent losses identified by Horizon, and his parents contributed all their savings, worth £62,000, towards paying off the money the Post Office insisted he owed.

Pressure from victims forced the government to hold a statutory public inquiry, which could compel witnesses to give evidence. The government originally offered a review with no such power.

After a High Court victory in 2019, which proved errors in the Horizon system were to blame for accounting shortfalls, the first thing campaigning subpostmaster Sir Alan Bates said to Computer Weekly was that he wanted a statutory public inquiry into the scandal. He got it in May 2021, when a planned government inquiry was made statutory.

The public inquiry examined an issue that went on for two decades and saw subpostmasters wrongly blamed and punished for accounting shortfalls. It was split into seven phases. The first phase, which Williams reported on today, focused on the human impact of the scandal, which revealed the extreme suffering of people at the hands of the Post Office.

Since the drama aired on primetime TV, the government has been forced into introducing unprecedented legislation to overturn the wrongful convictions of hundreds of former subpostmasters and increasing access to compensation, to more of the thousands affected.

There have been seven phases of the inquiry, which began with the victims telling their stories. This was followed in October 2022 by phase two, which saw an investigation into the Horizon IT system, its procurement, design, pilot, roll-out and modifications.

At the beginning of 2023, phase three put the operation of the Horizon system under the spotlight. Phase four, which began hearing evidence in July 2023, examined the practices of the lawyers and investigators involved in the prosecutions of subpostmasters.

In April 2024, a combined phase five and six began and featured directors, politicians and civil servants who, whether deliberately or not, contributed to the cover-up. Phase seven looked at the the current situation at the Post Office and the future.

There have been many shocking revelations, such as the Post Office having knowledge that the Horizon software had bugs when rolled out, prosecution witnesses changing their statements when prompted by the Post Office, and lawyers hiding evidence during trials of subpostmasters because it would have made their prosecutions unsafe.

The Post Office scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to the accounting software (see timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal below).

Highlights:

Public inquiry finds up to 13 suicides linked to wrongful Post Office prosecutions.

Horizon IT system faults led to false accusations, financial ruin, and imprisonment.

Sir Wyn Williams says Post Office maintained a “fiction” of accurate data despite known faults.

A PUBLIC inquiry has found that up to 13 people may have taken their own lives after being wrongly accused of financial misconduct by the Post Office, in what is now described as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history.

The report, published on Tuesday (8), exposed the devastating impact of a faulty IT system and called for urgent compensation and sweeping reforms.

Led by Sir Wyn Williams, the public inquiry concluded that the Post Office and technology supplier Fujitsu were aware, or should have been aware, that the Horizon IT system used in branches was prone to errors.

Despite this, they insisted for years that the system was reliable, leading to the wrongful prosecution of around 1,000 subpostmasters between 2000 and 2013.

ALSO READ: Post Office scandal trials ‘unlikely before 2028’

“I am satisfied from the evidence that I have heard that a number of senior, and not-so-senior employees of the Post Office knew or, at the very least should have known, that Legacy Horizon was capable of error,” Sir Wyn said. “Yet for all practical purposes, throughout the lifetime of Legacy Horizon, the Post Office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate.”

He added, “Many thousands of people have suffered serious financial detriment. Many businesses and homes have been lost, bankruptcies have occurred, marriages and families have been wrecked. Tragically, I heard too of people whom it is said that they were driven to take their own lives.”

The report detailed how the faulty system, first rolled out in 1999, falsely showed cash shortfalls in branch accounts.

Subpostmasters were forced to pay back money they never took, faced criminal charges, and in many cases, imprisonment. The inquiry heard 17 first-hand accounts of suffering, from small financial losses to wrongful imprisonment and suicide.

Subpostmaster Martin Griffiths died after being wrongly accused of a shortfall in his accounts. After losing his job, he walked in front of a bus and died from his injuries at 59.

The inquiry found six former subpostmasters and seven others who were not postmasters had taken their own lives because of the ordeal.

At least 59 people considered suicide, and 10 attempted it, directly linking their distress to the Post Office’s actions and the faulty Horizon system, the report revealed.

Sir Wyn noted, “I received evidence from at least 59 persons who contemplated suicide at various points in time and who attributed this to their experiences with Horizon and/or the Post Office.”

According to the report, the suffering extended beyond those prosecuted. Families were torn apart, with many reporting mental health problems, relationship breakdowns, and financial ruin. Some children of affected families also suffered psychological harm, it said.

The report was scathing about the conduct of both the Post Office and Fujitsu.

It said, “A number of senior, and not-so-senior employees of the Post Office knew or, at the very least should have known, that Legacy Horizon was capable of error. Yet for all practical purposes, throughout the lifetime of Legacy Horizon, the Post Office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate.”

Despite repeated warnings and evidence of faults, the Post Office continued to pursue subpostmasters, often after the reliability of the software had already been questioned. The inquiry described this as “wholly unacceptable behaviour” by both organisations.

Former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells, who gave evidence to the inquiry, broke down in tears recalling the case of a subpostmaster who took his own life after being accused of a £39,000 shortfall.

Public anger over the scandal grew after the ITV drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, aired in 2024, leading to new laws exonerating those wrongly convicted. However, the inquiry found that the process of compensation has been slow and fraught with problems.

Fujitsu’s European director Paul Patterson told a parliamentary committee later that the firm, which assisted the Post Office in prosecutions using flawed data from the software, was “truly sorry” for “this appalling miscarriage of justice”.

Many of those involved are still battling for compensation.

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said last month that 7,569 claims out of the 11,208 received had now been paid, leaving 3,709 still to be settled.

Alan Bates, a former subpostmaster who led the fight for justice, has said the compensation process has “turned into quasi-kangaroo courts”.

Bates, who was awarded a knighthood by King Charles for his campaign to highlight the scandal, told the Sunday Times in May the DBT “sits in judgement of the claims and alters the goal posts as and when it chooses”.

Post Office minister Gareth Thomas said last month the government had made it a priority to speed up the delivery of compensation since taking office in July 2024.

The inquiry has so far held 226 days of hearings and questioned 298 witnesses. The second volume of the final report, which will examine the role of the Post Office in greater detail, is expected in due course.

In the report, Sir Wyn has called for urgent action to ensure “full and fair” compensation, including free legal advice and support for family members. He recommended that compensation should match the highest civil court awards, and that the government, Post Office, and Fujitsu should agree on a programme of restorative justice. The report also calls for a permanent public body to be set up to handle redress for people wronged by public institutions.

Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said, “I am committed to ensuring wronged subpostmasters are given full, fair, and prompt redress.”

The government has set a deadline of October 10, 2025, for written responses to the inquiry’s recommendations. By October 31, the Department for Business and Trade, Fujitsu, and the Post Office must publish a report on restorative justice plans.

The Post Office scandal has left a deep scar on British society as thousands of families across the country are awaiting justice. The inquiry’s findings and recommendations now put the onus on the government and the Post Office to finally deliver justice and closure to the thousands whose lives were shattered by the scandal.

Asian victims

Harjinder Butoy

Harjinder Butoy bought the Forest Side Post Office in Sutton-in-Ashfield in 2004, investing his redundancy pay and a family loan. In 2007, an audit alleged a £200,000 shortfall. Despite a clean audit a week prior, Butoy was arrested, charged with theft, and convicted on 10 counts. He served 14 months in prison and lost his business, home, and reputation. The Post Office seized his assets, and his family faced bankruptcy. His wife and three children were forced to move in with relatives, enduring years of financial and emotional turmoil. Butoy, plagued by depression and unable to find work, saw his convictions quashed in 2021. He continues to seek justice for the ordeal, which left his family devastated and his life in ruins.

Parmod Kalia and Mahesh Kumar Kalia

Parmod Kalia, a postmaster since 1990, was convicted of theft in 2001 after a Post Office investigation, receiving a six-month prison sentence. The conviction upended his family’s life: his wife and children struggled to keep their shop afloat, and his son Mahesh, then 17, was forced to abandon his dream of becoming a pharmacist to help the family. The trauma fractured relationships – Mahesh and his father were estranged for 17 years, with siblings moving away and parents separating. Kalia’s conviction was finally quashed in 2021.

Siema Kamran and Kamran Ashraf

Siema Kamran and Kamran Ashraf bought a Hampstead Heath Post Office in 2001, but soon faced repeated, unexplained shortfalls. In 2003, an audit found a £25,000 deficit, leading to Siema’s suspension and both facing criminal charges. Kamran, advised to plead guilty, was sentenced to nine months in prison and ordered to pay compensation. The ordeal cost them their business, home, and community standing. Siema struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts, while Kamran developed post-traumatic stress disorder. Their marriage, though still intact, is described as “broken.” Both were ostracised in their community, and their financial losses were devastating. Kamran’s conviction was quashed in 2020, but the couple’s lives remain deeply affected.

(with inputs from agencies)

Thirteen people caught up in a faulty accounting software scandal at British Post Office branches may have killed themselves and 59 more contemplated doing so, a public inquiry report published Tuesday said.

The Post Office wrongfully prosecuted around 1,000 subpostmasters — self-employed branch managers — between 1999 and 2015.

Errors in tech giant Fujitsu’s Legacy Horizon accounting software incorrectly made it appear that money was missing from their accounts.

Bankruptcy, divorce and vitriolic abuse from the public were among the other “harrowing” impacts laid bare in a long-awaited report from the inquiry on Tuesday.

The inquiry chairman, retired judge Sir Wyn Williams, said at least 59 people “contemplated suicide at various points in time” and “attributed this to their experiences with Horizon and/or the Post Office”.

He described it as a “common experience” among both people who were prosecuted and those who were not and said 10 of the 59 had attempted to take their own lives, some on more than one occasion.

His report said the families of six former postmasters and seven others who were not postmasters claimed they had taken their own lives “as a consequence of Horizon showing an illusory shortfall in branch accounts”.

Sir Wyn said it was a “real possibility” the 13 had died as a result of their experiences of the scandal.

He said: “I should stress that whilst I cannot make a definitive finding that there is a causal connection between the deaths of all 13 persons and Horizon, I do not rule it out as a real possibility.

“It is also possible that more than 13 persons, as indicated by the Post Office in response to the inquiry’s requests in March 2025, died by suicide but that some deaths have not been reported to the Post Office or the inquiry.”

Martin Griffiths deliberately stepped in front of an oncoming bus on September 23 2013.

He had begun to suffer shortfalls in branch accounts in 2009 and, in the four years which followed, sought assistance from the IT helpdesk without success, the report said, adding that he was given notice in July 2013 that his postmaster contract was to be terminated.

A Post Office investigator had advised the Post Office that Mr Griffiths was partly to blame for the loss incurred from a robbery – during which he was injured – at his Hope Farm Post Office branch in Cheshire in May 2013, the report said.

His death, aged 59, “was and remains devastating for his wife, children and other close family”, the report added.

Sir Wyn’s report detailed the range of ways in which the devastating fallout of the scandal affected Post Office workers and their families, from investigations to convictions.

He wrote: “Nearly all the persons interviewed under caution by Post Office investigators will have been in wholly unfamiliar territory and they will have found the experience to be troubling at best and harrowing at worst.”

For those who were jailed “life may have seemed close to unbearable” at times, while others who were convicted but not imprisoned often faced “hostile and abusive behaviour from members of the public in the locality”.

The convicted who gave evidence to the inquiry told of the “psychiatric and psychological problems which dogged them throughout the Post Office’s audit and investigation process, the criminal process and thereafter”.

Sir Wyn said a “significant number” of those prosecuted and convicted said they contemplated self-harm, while 19 people said they had abused alcohol “and attributed this to their experiences with Horizon and/or the Post Office.”

It is thought approximately 1,000 people have been wrongly prosecuted and convicted across the UK between 1999 and 2015, with somewhere between 50 and 60 people prosecuted but not convicted, Sir Wyn said.

Those who were acquitted still faced being “ostracised in their local community”, the report noted.

Postmasters who were suspended or had their contracts terminated “suffered heightened distress and worry” over their loss of business, income and the effects on their family, it added.

If branches closed they “became the object of local hostility and adverse local publicity”.

Many convicted postmasters were declared bankrupt, described by the report as a “complicating factor in a number of claims brought by claimants”.

Some evidence laid out the “catalogue of misfortunes which befell” postmasters and their families.

The report said: “Wives, husbands, children and parents endured very significant suffering in the form of distress, worry and disruption (to home life, in employment and in education).

“In a number of cases relationships with spouses and partners broke down and ended in divorce or separation.”

The report said that on many occasions “immediate family members were forced to endure vitriolic abuse from persons within their local or cultural community”.

Elderly parents had provided financial support using their savings in some cases to help children who were subpostmasters, with the report adding: “Some of those convicted spoke of their immense regret that parents had not lived to see their convictions being quashed.”

The inquiry chairman also paid tribute to the “fortitude and determination” of spouses and other close relatives of those postmasters who died before having their convictions quashed on appeal.