The scandal dates again to 1999 and noticed greater than 700 subpostmasters get prosecuted by the Put up Workplace.
With a whole bunch of legal convictions handed out between 1999 and 2015, it was later discovered that they’d been wrongfully convicted as a consequence of inaccurate information supplied by the Horizon system.
The 2025 inquiry seeks to uncover the main points of the scandal, which had been delivered to public consideration extra prominently because of ITV’s drama Mr Bates Vs The Put up Workplace.
Here’s a timeline of key occasions from the scandal.
Timeline of the Put up Workplace Horizon IT scandal
The Horizon IT system begins for use in a gradual rollout throughout British Put up Workplace branches.
Subpostmaster Alan Bates first experiences points with the Horizon IT system, complaining to Put up Workplace administration that the Horizon system was unreliable, noting that its reporting services didn’t permit tracing of occasions behind shortfalls.
He asserted that it was unsuitable that operators had been obliged to make good on shortfalls brought on by the software program, with him and his employees making 85 calls relating to Horizon in a two-year interval.
Alan Bates’s contract is terminated after he refused to just accept legal responsibility for the shortfalls within the accounts at his Llandudno department in North Wales, as soon as once more citing flaws within the Horizon system.
Later in April 2024 in the course of the Horizon IT public inquiry, Bates could be proven inside Put up Workplace paperwork by which his termination was as a consequence of him being “unmanageable”, with notes referring to Bates as “combating accounting”.
East Yorkshire subpostmaster Lee Castleton was discovered to have a £25,000 shortfall at his department. The following authorized battle would finally make him bankrupt.
Pc Weekly journal breaks the story of seven subpostmasters starting their battle for justice, together with Alan Bates.
The eye on the scandal sparked Bates to name a gathering of affected subpostmasters within the Warwickshire village of Fenny Compton, which round 25 subpostmasters attended.
This was the early begin of the group often called the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance.
Pregnant subpostmaster Seema Misra, who ran a Put up Workplace in Surrey’s West Byfleet, is awarded jail time, following accusations of stealing £74,000.
Paula Vennells takes on the function of chief govt of the Put up Workplace.
Put up Workplace boss Paula Vennells asserts that there isn’t a proof of miscarriages of justice whereas addressing the enterprise choose committee.
In the identical yr, the Put up Workplace paused prosecutions of subpostmasters.
A bunch of 555 subpostmasters launch authorized motion towards the Put up Workplace for alleged miscarriages of justice.
After two years of authorized combating, a Excessive Court docket choose dominated that Horizon contained a variety of “bugs, errors and defects”. This led to a “materials danger” that shortfalls in Put up Workplace department accounts had been brought on by the system.
The Put up Workplace agreed to pay out £58 million to the 555 subpostmasters, whereas Vennells is made a CBE.
The Put up Workplace doesn’t oppose 44 appeals of convicted subpostmasters.
The federal government units up a statutory inquiry in search of to uncover the failings of the Horizon system and the way the wrongful convictions of subpostmasters took place.
The Court docket of Attraction quashes 39 wrongful Crown Court docket convictions.
The Authorities publicizes that each wrongly convicted subpostmaster might be provided £600,000 in compensation every.
In the identical month on January 9, Paula Vennells voluntarily fingers again her CBE.
ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Put up Workplace airs for the primary time between January 1 and 4, capturing public consideration on the scandal.
Chairman Sir Wyn Williams started publishing early sections of his report trying into the human price of the scandal, the ultimate conclusions of that are anticipated to be made public on the finish of 2025.
