TV show shows widest UK miscarriage of justice

LONDON — A hit TV series has reignited public outrage over a scandal dubbed the “most widespread miscarriage of justice” in British history, which destroyed the lives of hundreds of postal workers.

A fault with computer software used by the Post Office, a state-owned private company employing thousands of people across the country, resulted in some 230 employees going to jail on false charges of theft, fraud and false accounting.

Between 1999 and 2015, 736 sub-postmasters, who are self-employed branch managers under contract to the Post Office, were subjected to prosecutions and financial misconduct convictions based on inaccurate data generated by Horizon, a software program produced by Japanese company Fujitsu.

Accused of similar offences, thousands more people were forced to pay back non-existent losses accrued due to the software failure, driving many to financial ruin, serious ill health and, in several cases, to suicide. The sub-postmasters’ contracts with the Post Office rendered them accountable for any deficits incurred by their respective branches, meaning they were forced to repay the erroneous losses out of their own pockets.

After a 20-year legal battle led by the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA), the High Court in 2019 ruled that the Horizon software was at fault for the losses, and a public inquiry was ordered by the government to take place in the following year.

Horizon was manufactured by Fujitsu in 1999 and rolled out across Post…