Eight crucial Post Office scandal documents that should have rung alarm bells

Postmasters claim the Horizon accounting scandal came in two parts — a spree of wrongful prosecutions, followed by a cover-up that lasted a decade.

From May 2009, when the story broke in the media, there was a wave of protest and pressure on the central Post Office company from postmasters, their lawyers, and constituency MPs.

In public, bosses continued to back the Horizon accounting system, later proved to be riddled with bugs, as “robust”, including Paula Vennells, the former chief executive, who told MPs in 2015: “The system itself is working very well.”

They also denied that staff from the Post Office or Fujitsu, which installed and ran Horizon software, could change transactions remotely.

Paul Patterson, the chief executive of Fujitsu says the firm has a “moral obligation” to pay victims compensation

HOC/UNPIXS

But through this period, the Post Office commissioned and received