A newly uncovered document has revealed a confidential agreement between the Post Office and Fujitsu, signed 19 years ago, to correct errors in branch operators' accounts. This bombshell evidence directly contradicts the postal service's long-held position that it was unaware of bugs within the Horizon IT system capable of causing phantom financial shortfalls.
Contract Reveals Remote Access and Penalty Clauses
The 26-page contract, dated 2006 and marked "Commercial in Confidence", was discovered on the official website of the ongoing Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry. It explicitly grants both parties authorisation to alter post office operators' branch accounts remotely. For years, the Post Office maintained during criminal prosecutions that such remote alteration was impossible.
The agreement states that if transaction data held on Fujitsu's central database was found inconsistent with branch records, a reconciliation service would "obtain authorisation from the Post Office prior to amending the centrally held transaction data." Furthermore, the contract stipulated that Fujitsu would face penalty payments of £100 to £150 for every faulty transaction processed by the Horizon system.
Legal and Human Consequences of Concealed Evidence
This revelation has sent shockwaves through the ongoing public inquiry and among the victims of the scandal. More than 900 sub-postmasters and mistresses were wrongfully convicted of theft, fraud, and false accounting between 1999 and 2015, based on erroneous data from the faulty Horizon software. Many were financially ruined, imprisoned, and tragically, some were driven to suicide.
Senior barrister Paul Marshall, representing affected operators, told the BBC that the Post Office pursued both criminal trials and a 2019 group litigation "on the basis that it knew of no substantial problems with the Horizon system." He stated, "This shows that in 2006 there was a very big, recognised problem with Horizon... The Post Office, for 20 years, was saying the only explanation for shortfalls in branch accounts was postmaster incompetence or dishonesty."
Lee Castleton, a former branch operator who was pursued through the courts in 2006 for a £25,000 shortfall and declared bankrupt, told Channel 4 News the discovery made him feel "physically sick". He emphasised the document's critical importance, saying it would have "absolutely" changed his case. "We're now talking about accounts that can be adjusted remotely, but also a contract in place for how that should be done," he said.
Castleton added, "You know, 13 people potentially have taken their lives because of the treatment at the hands of these companies. It's disgusting to think that even now, two decades on, we're finding new documents... that are intrinsic to what was going on."
Post Office and Fujitsu Respond to Latest Disclosure
In response to the document's emergence, a Post Office spokesperson issued a fresh apology: "We apologise unequivocally for the hurt and suffering which Post Office caused to so many people during the Horizon IT scandal. Today, our organisation is focused on working transparently with the ongoing public inquiry, paying full and fair financial redress to those impacted, and establishing a meaningful restorative justice programme."
A spokesperson for Fujitsu, the Japanese technology giant that built and maintained the Horizon system, declined to comment substantively, stating: "These matters are the subject of forensic investigation by the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry and it's not appropriate for us to comment while that process is ongoing."
The inquiry continues to uncover evidence, with this 2006 contract representing a pivotal piece that undermines the official narrative maintained by the Post Office for nearly two decades.
