Fujitsu Europe’s CEO, Paul Patterson, has acknowledged the firm’s “moral obligation” to take part in compensating sub-postmasters who were wrongly prosecuted following issues with the company’s defective IT software known as Horizon. At the Post Office trial, this evidence resulted in the wrongful prosecution of innocent managers. Patterson confirmed that the Post Office had knowledge of the reported “bugs and errors” in the accounting software early on in the trial. In the meantime, Fujitsu’s Global CEO, Takahito Tokita, also expressed his apologies to those affected by the scandal during an interview with BBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland while adding, “This is a big issue, which Fujitsu takes very seriously.”
Between 1999 and 2015, 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses were falsely accused, most based on evidence from the Horizon software. Many faced trial, resulting in some wrongly being sent to prison or suffering financially. This was regarded as one of Britain’s most extensive miscarriages of justice, with just 93 convictions overturned, and many people waiting for compensation settlements more than 20 years on.
Tokita added that Fujitsu would not confirm whether the corporation would return any of the revenue earned from the defective Horizon program. His public comments came after MPs on the Business and Trade committee saw Fujitsu’s Patterson and Post Office CEO Nick Read at the select committee session.
Patterson initially apologised for his firm’s role in what he described as “appalling miscarriage of justice” but then revealed, “We did have bugs and errors in the system and we did help the Post Office in their prosecutions of the sub-postmasters.”Avoiding several queries and criticism by the MPs, both Patterson and Read were criticised for a lack of answers and knowledge of the proceedings. On Tuesday, only three of the 77 wrongly convicted sub-postmasters had fully recognised compensation
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