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Post Office scandal victims given route to appeal unfair financial settlements

Subpostmasters who feel they received inadequate financial redress in the Horizon Shortfalls Scheme can appeal the settlements through a new independent process

Karl Flinders
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Published: 09 Sep 2024 17:31

Over 2,000 victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal can now appeal the financial redress they have received if they believe it to be inadequate, through a new independent process.

The government announced that any of the 2,228 former Post Office branch workers who have already settled through the Horizon Shortfalls Scheme (HSS), can appeal if they believe the settlement does not reflect their losses and suffering.

The HSS was established after the conclusion of a 2018/19 High Court trial that proved unexplained accounting shortfalls, which subpostmasters were blamed for and had to repay, were caused by errors in the Horizon computer system used in branches.

HSS was designed for former subpostmasters who were not convicted of crimes but suffered losses as a result of repaying to the Post Office the shortfalls for which they were wrongly blamed. It has so far paid 2,280 people a total of £144m including interim payments, but many of those victims feel they were rushed into accepting settlements. The government has so far accepted 3,930 applications to HSS. A total of 2,262 (57%) have accepted full and final payments worth more than £90m in total.

The announcement from the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said: “This will mean postmasters who feel their financial settlement did not reflect the true extent of their losses and trauma will be able to apply for the new independent process, which will be overseen by the DBT.” 

Post Office minister Gareth Thomas added: “This new appeals process will give postmasters the opportunity to have their settlements independently reviewed by my department.” 

The appeals process has been introduced following feedback from the independent advisory board set up to oversee the process of financial redress for victims of the Horizon scandal. Peers Kevan Jones and James Arbuthnot, who have campaigned for subpostmasters for many years, are members of the advisory board and raised concerns that, when the scheme began in 2020, claimants were unable to set out their claim in full.

“The appeals process will provide postmasters with the opportunity to have their claim re-assessed with the benefit of new or additional information they can provide,” said DBT.

Arbuthnot said in the early stages of the HSS the Government was more aggressive in its negotiations and some subpostmasters were more prepared to settle for smaller amounts than would be the case now. "It is only right that subpostmasters should be treated equally (to the extent that that is possible) in the calculation of their redress, so it is wholly fair that there should be an independent appeal mechanism to ensure that equality and to bring credibility to the process."

Jo Hamilton, a former subpostmistress who was wrongly convicted of false accounting, was part of a different redress scheme aimed at the wrongfully convicted. She said: “This is very welcome news for those that have settled early in HSS and I think the government should look at all scheme settlements.”

As well as HSS and the process for those wrongfully convicted, there is a further scheme for subpostmasters who defeated the Post Office in the High Court group litigation order (GLO) in 2018/19.

Sir Alan Bates, the campaigning former subpostmaster who worked for decades exposing the Post Office's behaviour said: “Anything they do to help victims get fair redress is positive news but they always seem to be tidying the edges rather than sorting out bigger problems, such as how few of the GLO group have received full, final and fair financial redress.”

If it wasn’t for the huge effort of the 555 members of the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance who defeated the Post Office in the GLO, the Post Office scandal may never have reached this stage.

The scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters, including Alan Bates, and the problems they suffered due to accounting software. It’s one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history (see below timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal, since 2009). 

• Also read: What you need to know about the Horizon scandal •

• Also watch: ITV’s documentary – Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The real story •

Timeline: Computer Weekly articles about the scandal since 2009

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