The Post Office Horizon scandal, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in human history, caused 13 people to take their own lives according to a new report laying bare the ‘unspeakable’ human impact on the victims and their families.

The inquiry into the wrongful conviction of over 1,000 innocent sub-postmasters reported today on the human impact of the faulty IT system and the subsequent impact of attempts at redress. The Chair of the Inquiry, Sir Wyn Williams, said yesterday that ‘the picture which has emerged is profoundly disturbing’. He wrote that he ‘does not think it is easy to exaggerate the trauma which persons are likely to suffer when they are the subject of criminal investigation, prosecution, conviction and sentence.’

Recommendations relating to the conduct of senior Post Office and Fujitsu employees will come in later reports, however Sir Williams is clear that wrongful convictions were ‘knowingly pursued’. Despite knowing that data produced by the Horizon computer system was often ‘illusory’, he said in his report that ‘for all practical purposes’ the Post Office ‘maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate’.

The impact of this ‘fiction’ is now known to include suicides, attempts by sub-postmasters and family members to take their own lives, illness, family breakdown, bankruptcy and abuse within their communities.

The report details the impact on Mr Kamran Ashraf, who bought a Post Office branch in Hampstead Heath in the late 1990s. He was almost immediately found during an audit to have a financial shortfall of £25,000. Both Ashraf and his wife were investigated, their home and business searched, and he was advised by a solicitor to plead guilty to the charges, in part to avoid further investigation of his wife who by that time was pregnant. Ashraf was convicted of theft and sentenced to 9 months in prison, first in HMP Wandsworth then Ford open prison, a considerable distance from his family.

Mr Ashraf’s conviction was not overturned until 2020, and over two decades later his wife told the inquiry that they both still suffer psychological distress, including PTSD and suicidal thoughts. Although they are still married, she described their relationship as ‘broken’ because of the impact of the conviction.

Another case example in the report relates to Mr Martin Griffiths, a sub-postmaster of a branch in Ellesmere Port. For many years he had no accounting difficulties, but in 2009 his Horizon system began to show shortfalls. He was eventually suspended without pay, then terminated from his position. His family described how he repeatedly called the helpdesk but was made to feel like he was the only person experiencing these difficulties – a complaint made by many sub-postmasters despite the fact that we now know it was affecting hundreds of people.

Martin Griffiths’ shortfalls were by 2013 thought to amount to over £102,000, and just before he was suspended in 2013 a robbery led to the theft of around £35,000. A Post Office investigation found him partially liable for this loss. He struggled with his mental health from the moment the first shortfalls appeared and used both his and his parents’ savings to try and pay back what was apparently missing. The month before his suspension notice was due to take effect, he walked in front of a moving bus and later died in hospital.

The inquiry chair also paid tribute to the spouses and close family members of those sub-posters who died before their wrongful convictions were overturned, praising their ‘fortitude and determination’. He also addressed the fact that many others have died in the intervening period between their conviction being overturned and receiving full financial redress for their suffering, underlining the enormous amount of time that has passed without claimants being fully compensated.

This stage of the inquiry has also considered the compensation schemes currently operating to try and offer financial redress to the victims of this miscarriage of justice. This report has found that Post Office bosses and their advisors have taken an ‘unnecessarily adversarial attitude’ to the payment of compensation. Sir Williams said this had had the effect of ‘depressing the level at which settlements have been achieved.

The four compensation schemes in operation have now been merged to two, and the government has been urged to agree with the Post Office on a definition of what constitutes ‘full and fair’ compensation for the around 10,000 people now claiming. The report also recommends all victims received free legal advice, funded by the government, to help them decide whether they should accept the fixed-offer sum or assessment of their claims.