Police investigate ‘potential fraud offences’ during Post Office IT scandal

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Metropolitan Police detectives are looking at “potential fraud offences” committed during the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

More than 700 people across the UK were prosecuted for theft and false accounting between 2000 and 2014, including over 70 Scots workers who were forced to pay out thousands after the Post Office’s flawed Fujitsu IT system incorrectly suggested catalogues of financial shortfall.It has been described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history with some postmaster even serving time after being wrongly blamed for missing cash.

A public inquiry into it is ongoing.Scotland Yard said on Friday evening that officers are “investigating potential fraud offences arising out of these prosecutions”, for example “monies recovered from sub-postmasters as a result of prosecutions or civil actions”.The Met has already been looking into potential offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice in relation to investigations and prosecutions carried out by the Post Office.Two people have been interviewed under caution but nobody has been arrested since the investigation was launched in January 2020.After ITV aired a drama into the scandal, Mr Bates Vs The Post Office starring actor Toby Jones, 50 new potential victims have approached lawyers, it has been said.Neil Hudgell, executive chairman of Hudgell Solicitors, who has, so far, helped 73 former subpostmasters to have convictions related to the scandal quashed, told the PA news agency: “Our clients welcome the statement from the Met.“They want to see people properly held to account for proven wrongdoing in the prosecution and financial ruin of so many of them.“They have complete faith in the public inquiry in the search for answers as to