Chris Head: Post Office scandal report is ‘monumental’ day

Chris Head was falsely accused of stealing more than £80,000 from his branch in West Boldon, near Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, in 2006 before the criminal case against him was dropped.

Speaking to the PA news agency ahead of the report being published, Mr Head said: “It’s a monumental day.

“I do believe it will be damning for both the Post Office and the Government.”

“It’s quite clear that there has been a deliberate attempt to cover this whole scandal up and now, obviously, the further traumatic experience of people trying to receive redress.”

More than 900 subpostmasters were wrongfully prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 in what has been dubbed as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history.

Many were wrongly convicted of crimes such as theft and false accounting after faulty software made it look as though money was missing from their accounts.

Subpostmasters’ lives were destroyed – with some bankrupted by legal action and sent to prison.

On Tuesday (July 8), the first volume of the Horizon IT inquiry’s final report will be published – covering the devastating impact on the lives of the scandal’s victims and the compensation process.

The issue of financial redress has frequently been flagged as an issue by subpostmasters – with many still awaiting full compensation.

The various compensation schemes have been criticised by victims as unfair and difficult to navigate – processes which lead campaigner Sir Alan Bates has previously described as “quasi-kangaroo courts”.

Retired judge Sir Wyn Williams, the chairman of the probe, will make a public statement following the report’s publication.

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In an interim report published in July 2023, Sir Wyn described legislative changes made to resolve issues with the redress schemes as “a patchwork quilt of compensation schemes… with some holes in it”.

The inquiry was established in 2020, with a number of witnesses giving evidence on the use of Fujitsu’s Horizon system, Post Office governance and the legal action taken against subpostmasters.

In a previous statement addressing the compensation schemes, the Department for Business and Trade said: “This Government has quadrupled the total amount paid to affected postmasters to provide them with full and fair redress, with more than £1 billion having now been paid to over 7,300 claimants.”