Dozens in UK post office accounting scandal 'considered suicide': Inquiry

Some 59 people caught up in a faulty accounting software scandal at British Post Office branches contemplated suicide, according to a public inquiry report published Tuesday.

In one of the country's worst miscarriages of justice, the Post Office wrongfully prosecuted around 1,000 subpostmasters -- self-employed branch managers -- between 1999 and 2015.

Errors in tech giant Fujitsu's "Legacy Horizon" accounting software incorrectly made it appear that money was missing from their accounts.

Many ended up bankrupt, after being forced by the Post Office to pay back the missing funds. Some were jailed.

Dozens who were later exonerated died without ever seeing their names cleared.

Fifty-nine people considered killing themselves with 10 attempting to take their own lives, an inquiry into the scandal said in a first report.

Inquiry chair Wyn Williams added that there was a "real possibility" that 13 people did kill themselves as a result of their ordeal.

Many of the prosecutions took place after questions began to be raised about the software's reliability.

Police are investigating possible fraud offences committed during the scandal.

"I am satisfied from the evidence that I have heard that a number of senior, and not-so-senior employees of the Post Office knew or, at the very least should have known, that Legacy Horizon was capable of error," said Williams in the report. 

"Yet for all practical purposes, throughout the lifetime of Legacy Horizon, the Post Office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate,” he added.

Among those who gave evidence to the inquiry was former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells who was quizzed about what she knew and when.

Vennells broke down in tears when recalling the case of one subpostmaster who took his own life after being wrongly accused over a £39,000 ($49,537) shortfall at his branch.

The long-running saga hit the headlines after the broadcast in January 2024 of a television drama about the subpostmasters' ordeal, which generated a wave of sympathy and outrage.

Fujitsu's European director Paul Patterson told a parliamentary committee later that the firm, which assisted the Post Office in prosecutions using flawed data from the software, was "truly sorry" for "this appalling miscarriage of justice".

Many of those involved are still battling for compensation.

The government's Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said last month that 7,569 claims out of the 11,208 received had now been paid, leaving 3,709 still to be settled.

Alan Bates, a former subpostmaster who led the fight for justice, has said the compensation process has "turned into quasi-kangaroo courts".

Bates, who was awarded a knighthood by King Charles III for his campaign to highlight the scandal, told the Sunday Times newspaper in May the DBT "sits in judgement of the claims and alters the goal posts as and when it chooses".

Post Office Minister Gareth Thomas said last month the government had made it a priority to speed up the delivery of compensation since taking office in July 2024.