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Fujitsu must use its billions to compensate Post Office Horizon scandal victims, say campaigners
They call for new inquiry ‘free of the restrictions and limitations’ of the current one
![Postmasters celebrate outside London' High Court after their convictions were quashed](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/01/07/TELEMMGLPICT000333586926_17046547954240_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq2c2lofYJrmVwqtGhHZK-2wWkuarGnSUjo3Jrss4NMRQ.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Fujitsu must use its billions to compensate victims of the Post Office sub-postmaster Horizon scandal, campaign leaders have said.
Tory peer Lord Arbuthnot and Baron Falconer, who sits in the House of Lords for Labour, have both played prominent roles in seeking justice for the hundreds affected.
They were convicted between 1999 and 2015 because Horizon, a faulty accounting system that was designed by Fujitsu, made it seem as though money was missing from their businesses.
The Japanese multinational is worth about £58 billion and Britain is one of its key markets, with the firm representing around 7,000 jobs in the UK.
In a column for The Sunday Times, the peers said: “The inquiry needs to examine in detail the role of Fujitsu, which provided and managed the faulty software.
“Was Fujitsu completely unaware of the devastating effect of its actions? Should it not contribute to the compensation claims of hundreds of sub-postmasters?”
![Baron Falconer](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/01/07/TELEMMGLPICT000077771567_17046549953200_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqCoxRyp9wMMe5pDheCT2T9OLeLH6k-dQ5AmZQSTWOSj8.jpeg?imwidth=350)
The Government has continued to work with Fujitsu in the wake of the scandal, awarding it public sector contracts worth £3 billion since 2013.
Last week, the Environment Agency announced that the firm had been given a £2 million contract extension to run the flood warnings system after reported delays in finding a replacement supplier.
Lord Arbuthnot and Baron Falconer called for a full statutory public inquiry “without the restrictions and limitations of the current one”.
They added: “There needs to be a fast-track procedure, within the inquiry, to calculate how each individual sub-postmaster should be compensated, for loss of money, for the trauma through which they have been forced and in many cases for the punishments they have wrongly been given.
“We should be ashamed of ourselves. But the value in shame is that it encourages one to do better. Provided we take the right steps, without further foot-dragging, we can begin to put things back in place. But for too many sub-postmasters, that can never happen.”
![Lord Arbuthnot](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/01/07/TELEMMGLPICT000361881415_17046551003560_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqBdFNMfjiVMDR6a3w6H6ypTqZLWUJ_VFmtrLFS6tisKY.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Evidence from the faulty Horizon system secured the prosecutions of 700 sub-postmasters between 2000 and 2014, with the Post Office prosecuting them for false accounting, fraud and theft. Out of these, only 11 have been compensated in full.
On Sunday, Andrew Neil, the veteran broadcaster, described Fujitsu as “complicit” in the scandal and said those responsible for the Horizon scandal should be held to account.
He said: “They should have their day in court too. But it was the Post Office which put innocent people in jail.”
A spokesman for Fujitsu told The Telegraph: “The current Post Office Horizon IT statutory inquiry is examining complex events stretching back over 20 years to understand who knew what, when, and what they did with that knowledge. The Inquiry has reinforced the devastating impact on postmasters’ lives and that of their families, and Fujitsu has apologised for its role in their suffering.
“Fujitsu is fully committed to supporting the inquiry in order to understand what happened and to learn from it. Out of respect for the inquiry process, it would be inappropriate for Fujitsu to comment further at this time.”