The then government representative, Tom Cooper, a senior civil servant, had been heavily criticised and had resigned following a scandal concerning Post Office bonuses and the slow disclosure of documents to the Horizon Inquiry.

[37]: 34, 343  In February 2015, George Thomson, the general secretary of the NFSP, told a House of Commons committee:[38]We have to be careful, that we are not creating a cottage industry that damages the brand and makes clients like the DWP and the DVLA think twice.

"[64][65]: 7  It stated that Horizon had not been accurately tracking money from lottery terminals, Vehicle Excise Duty payments or cash machine transactions – and Post Office investigators had not looked for the cause of the errors, instead accusing the subpostmasters of theft or false accounting.

Another minister, Stephen Timms, claimed to have been similarly duped in 2004 when he wrote a letter to MPs insisting that “[Post Office managers] have found no evidence to suggest there is any fault with the Horizon system and maintain that the decision to terminate Mr Bates’ contract was legitimate.”.

Simon Clarke, a barrister employed by Cartwright King, was assigned his first Post Office case in April or May 2013, and on 27 June he became aware that the forthcoming Second Sight report would describe two bugs in the Horizon Online software.

Concluding their executive summary, Richard Moorhead, Karen Nokes and Rebecca Helm say:[88] There are lessons to be learned on the nature of human and professional relationships that encourage lawyers to absorb and reflect back their client's view without sufficient independence and critical detachment.

The Post Office is an arm's length organisation, but there seems to be no accountability ..." Chi Onwurah MP said, "Its only shareholder is the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, so more should have been done to address the scandal before it was allowed to fester to this extent.

Journalist and writer Nick Wallis, commenting on the two very senior lawyers who had advised the Post Office Board on the strategy, described it as "misuse (of) a very serious instrument designed to aid fairness as a weapon purely for their wealthy client's benefit".

[107] The Post Office had set up a litigation sub-committee, attended on 24 April 2019 by Tim Parker, Tom Cooper (director of UK Government Investments),[108] David Cavender, Alisdair Cameron, Ben Foat, staff from Womble Bond Dickinson and from Herbert Smith Freehills.

[150] On BBC radio's Law in Action, Moorhead recognised the radical nature of the proposed legislation but explained that the need to exonerate the victims of the scandal "at pace" was imperative, to enable compensation to be paid quickly.

This sets a dangerous precedent, overturning criminal convictions based on political opportunism rather than justice, fact, and law.The Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill was introduced into Parliament on 13 March 2024[154] and approved on 23 May.

In February 2022, MPs from parliament's Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) committee expressed concerns about the time taken to make settlements to former Post Office operators who were wrongfully convicted and warned that compensation needed to be concluded urgently, as many of those affected by the long-running scandal are elderly, some having died while awaiting redress, while others remained at risk of losing their homes.

The Law Society Gazette reported:[171] Moloney explained [an] applicant had run a successful postmaster business for 20 years before his life was ruined by a false conviction which led to his mental health deteriorating and his being unable to pay his mortgage.

Simon Recaldin, director responsible for compensation and disclosures, explained that closure of the Horizon shortfall scheme had been planned for March 2025, but a further 1,000 claims were made following the transmission of Mr Bates v The Post Office.

[95] In a written ministerial statement on 10 June 2020, Paul Scully, minister for small business, consumers and labour markets, announced the scope of the independent review into the Post Office Horizon IT system and the trials.

[192] Neil Hudgell, representing SPMs, said "Now Post Office officials must face criminal investigation for maliciously ruining lives by prosecuting innocent people in pursuit of profits", and called for the prime minister to convene a judge-led inquiry.

[193] After the subpostmasters' successful appeals on both grounds one and two of abuse of process, in an article headed "Calls grow for SRA and police to investigate Post Office lawyers", Hudgell wrote that the Post Office engaged in "legal gymnastics to seek to persuade the court away from finding a clear systematic abuse of process of the criminal law", adding "the SRA and BSB [Bar Standards Board] should investigate whether anyone should be held to account amid professional concerns about who was responsible for disclosure issues".

That's why, in light of the recent Court of Appeal judgment, we're stepping up our independent inquiry by putting it on a statutory footing, so we can get the answers they deserve.On 28 July 2021, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy issued its fourth statement of approach, which included the terms of reference.

Sir, you must, to discharge the Inquiry's remit, you must do the equivalent of listening to the tapes.Immediately after the November hearing, Williams said he would ask Post Office Limited, IT supplier Fujitsu, and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy to waive privilege in respect of material relevant to the terms of reference, and he set a deadline for a response.

[214] On 9 April 2024, the inquiry commenced Phases 5 and 6 to cover "[r]edress, access to justice, Second Sight, Complaint Review and Mediation Scheme, conduct of the group litigation, responding to the scandal, governance, monitoring of Horizon, contractual arrangements, internal and external audit, technical competence, stakeholder engagement, oversight and whistleblowing".

[224][225] Angela van den Bogerd, a former senior manager at the Post Office, was questioned about her statement to the High Court in 2019 in which she said she had only become aware in 2018 that transactions could be input to Horizon without a subpostmaster's knowledge; emails given to the inquiry showed she was told about this in 2010 and 2014.

[227] In week six, Alisdair Cameron, Post Office CFO and former interim chief executive, told the inquiry that former CEO Vennells had been "clear in her conviction" that nothing had gone wrong with Horizon and did not believe there had been miscarriages of justice.

[230] Vennells agreed that "the right and honest thing for the Post Office to have done" would have been to let the CCRC know immediately in 2013 about the doubts over the evidence of Gareth Jenkins, the Fujitsu engineer who designed the Horizon accounting system and who had withheld information from the courts about bugs in the software.

[242] Appearing before the inquiry in the penultimate week of Phase 6, Sir Vince Cable, business secretary between 2010 and 2015, said he was unaware of the prosecutions, despite being in charge of the organisation while in government, and that he agreed with Alan Bates's description of Post Office middle-management as "thugs in suits".

[248] Kemi Badenoch, who had been Secretary of State for Business and Trade from February 2023, told the inquiry in its final week that it was "extremely disappointing" that it took the 2024 ITV drama about the Post Office scandal to get the government to accelerate compensation payments for wrongfully prosecuted subpostmasters.

[251] In his end of year message, Sir Wyn Williams said, " [T]he evidence I have read and heard throughout the Inquiry has made a deep impression upon me and emphasised the scale of the hardship and suffering endured by those affected by the scandal.

[253][254] When handing down the Horizon issues judgment in December 2019, Fraser said he had passed a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions relating to evidence given by Fujitsu employees in actions brought by the Post Office.

[263][264][265] In June 2024, Karl Flinders of Computer Weekly reported that the day before he was to give evidence at the public inquiry, Jenkins had resigned his BCS membership and Chartered IT Professional status after he was informed earlier that month that he could face disciplinary action for breaching the society's code of conduct.

On 8 September 2009, the jailing of Anglesey subpostmaster Noel Thomas was covered on the S4C current affairs programme Taro Naw, making the claims of problems with Horizon, and interviewing Alan Bates, Lee Castleton and Jo Hamilton, who had featured in the Computer Weekly article.

[277] Starting in 2012, other BBC news and current affairs programmes and national newspapers began to cover the scandal, with the Daily Mail in 2015 publishing a double-page spread entitled "Decent lives destroyed by the Post Office".