Post Office report set to lay bare human impact of IT scandal

Tuesday will mark a major milestone in the long road to justice for the victims of the Post Office IT scandal following a far-reaching inquiry.

Part of a final report will be published focusing on compensation and the human impact of what is believed to be one of the biggest miscarriages of justices in UK history.

Thousands of sub-postmasters were wrongly blamed for financial losses from the Post Office's faulty Horizon computer system, which was developed by Fujitsu.

More than 900 people were prosecuted and 236 were sent to prison.

Sir Wyn Williams, chair of the long-running inquiry, has put victims at the heart of the work, which has pored over several decades worth of technical evidence and grilled many of those who had a role in ruining so many lives.

Dozens of sub-postmasters have given evidence, many who had lost their businesses, their homes and some who were jailed.

Sir Wyn's findings on their treatment will surely be damning, given everything he has heard since the inquiry began in 2022.

The scandal came to wider public attention last year after it was depicted in an ITV drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office.

The inquiry itself became almost box office viewing - racking up more than 20 million views on YouTube, with people with no connection to the Post Office following it closely.

However, it is going to be months before we find out who Sir Wyn will point the finger of blame at.

That will come in the next part of the report, meaning that accountability is still a long way off.

'Patchwork quilt'

Sir Wyn has taken a big interest in compensation for the victims, admitting at one point that he'd stretched his terms of reference on the issue, "perhaps beyond breaking point".

He held four separate hearings on redress and issued an interim report in 2023, likening the various schemes to a "patchwork quilt with a few holes in it".

Victims and their legal representatives still battling to secure final payouts will be looking to see what his conclusions are on compensation and whether it is living up to the mantra of being full and fair.

They hope his recommendations will result in more action.

Former sub-postmaster Lee Castleton, falsely accused of stealing £25,000 from his branch in East Yorkshire in 2004, said the compensation schemes should never have been given to the Post Office to set up in the first place.

"This is destructive. You've got a cohort of people that still believe that they were right," he told the BBC.

He thinks Sir Wyn himself should have been put in charge of managing redress.

"Being a former High Court judge he would have been perfectly placed to make sure the fairness and the equality that a judge can give in a court process should have been given in this compensation scheme."

Sir Wyn knows how pressing compensation is to many of the victims and that's why he wants to publish his recommendations on the issue as soon as possible.

"It's something I am very keen to say as much about as I reasonably can," he told the inquiry last year.

By breaking up the publication of his final report into two parts, Sir Wyn can comment on how the government has dealt with his recommendations on payouts in the second part.

It is a different approach to the infected blood scandal inquiry, which was reopened a year after its final report was published following criticisms of slow compensation payouts.

But the implication from this is that part two - establishing what happened and who is to blame - isn't coming out any time soon.

This second report may not be published until 2026 given the sheer volume and complexity of the evidence as well as the need to give those who are criticised the chance to respond.

As for justice, any criminal trials may not start until 2028. Police investigating the scandal confirmed last month that files won't be handed to prosecutors until after the final inquiry report is published.

After years of waiting, even after part one of Sir Wyn's report is published, the sub-postmasters' long road to justice will continue.

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