Police investigation into Post Office Horizon scandal will take until ‘at least’ 2026, says Met chief

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An investigation into potential prison offences linked to the Post Office Horizon scandal will take a minimum of until 2026, Britain’s most senior police officer has admitted.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley mentioned that an exhaustive nationwide investigation will take place to find out whether or not crimes have been dedicated. The investigation will comply with the public inquiry into the problem which is because of publish its findings late subsequent 12 months.

He mentioned detectives will need to trawl by way of tens of thousands and thousands of paperwork to be able to set up if crimes akin to fraud or perverting the course of justice passed off. Officers will need to show past affordable doubt “deliberate malice” on the a part of alleged suspects.

Hundreds of subpostmasters have been wrongly convicted of stealing after the faulty Horizon accounting system, developed by Fujitsu’s ICL enterprise, made it seem as if cash was lacking at their branches.

The Post Office additionally pressured a minimum of 4,000 department managers to pay again money based mostly on the flawed information.

Sir Mark informed LBC: “We’re now working with police forces across the country to pull together what will have to be a national investigation, which we’ll pull together because there’s hundreds of postmasters and mistresses from across the country.

“Fujitsu are based in one part of the country and the Post Office is another part of the country, [it’s a] massive piece of work to do.

“There are tens of millions of documents to be worked through in a criminal investigation. And of course, we’ve got to do that following on behind the public inquiry, which I think finishes at the end of this year but won’t publish until late next year.”

He informed host Nick Ferrari it might take until a minimum of 2026 for the work to be accomplished. Proving prison intent, if it existed, will want an in depth investigation that “won’t be quick”, he mentioned.

“At the core of the issue you’ve potentially got fraud in terms of false documents if it’s for financial purposes, and you’ve potentially got perverting the course of justice if people have deliberately set in train evidence into a legal process, which they know is false. That would be perverting the course of justice.

“To prove this to a criminal standard is different to what’s in a documentary. Clearly, we have to prove beyond all reasonable doubt, really 99.99 per cent, that individuals knowingly corrupted something, so that’s going way beyond incompetence, you have to prove deliberate malice, and that has to be done very thoroughly with an exhaustive investigation. So it won’t be quick.

“But the police service across the country is alive to this and we will do everything we can to bring people to justice if criminal offences can be proven.”

The commissioner’s feedback come as the federal government introduced it had requested discussions with Fujitsu on its contribution to compensation for subpostmasters. One of the tech large’s executives this week informed MPs it has a “moral obligation” to contribute to any redress.

The prime minister’s official spokesperson mentioned on Wednesday: “The Department for Business and Trade has formally started the process of requesting discussions about how we explore that.

“The inquiry does need to establish the facts, but we’re keen to be as prepared as possible to act at the appropriate point.”

The official added: “It’s important that we don’t do anything that would jeopardise our approach and we will set up these discussions so that we can move as quickly as possible, but it’s right that we establish culpability fully.”

The spokesperson declined to touch upon the tempo of the prison probe in gentle of Sir Mark’s feedback.

Meanwhile, the general public inquiry into the scandal heard that Fujitsu, the IT agency behind the Horizon software program, didn’t need to be “dragged” into the prison prosecutions of the subpostmasters.

Data displaying keystrokes from subpostmasters had beforehand been extracted and introduced to the Post Office, however Fujitsu worker John Simpkins informed the inquiry that they stopped providing to filter information after 2011 when emails confirmed requests to enhance “functionality”.

Mr Simpkins informed the inquiry it was “partially” as a result of it needed to keep away from being concerned in prison prosecutions of subpostmasters and likewise as a result of it was too tough a course of to hold out.

Software engineer Gerald Barnes informed the listening to that error dealing with in Fujitsu “wasn’t as good as it could have been if designed properly from the start” and that his issues had been dismissed by colleagues.

In January 2008, Mr Barnes advised a repair was wanted to right an error that affected subpostmasters after they balanced their accounts, however his request was refused as a result of the issues have been deemed a “rarity”.

Rishi Sunak introduced earlier this month that MPs will go a brand new legislation to exonerate these convicted due to Horizon after ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office shone a light-weight on the plight of affected subpostmasters, whose fightback was led by Alan Bates.

There will even be a brand new upfront cost of £75,000 to those that weren’t convicted however have been affected by the scandal.

However, No 10 has already admitted that it expects solely round a 3rd of the postmasters pressured to shell out big sums over the debacle to simply accept the £75,000 cost, and that many will push for extra.

The Post Office has already conceded it owes compensation to 1000’s of subpostmasters who weren’t convicted however have been pressured to pay again incorrect shortfalls – with 2,700 individuals thus far supplied a mean of round £44,000 in compensation.

Lawyers have additionally mentioned that a whole bunch extra victims who have been caught up within the scandal may now come ahead.

This week Mr Bates has warned subpostmasters are dying whereas they anticipate funds from the Horizon scandal compensation scheme, as he described the delays as “madness”.