Jo Hamilton, a victim of the Post Office Horizon scandal, has criticised the delay in compensation for sub-postmasters and called on the government to pay out immediately. It follows comments by Post Office minister Gareth Thomas that not all payments would be made by March 2022. Campaigners, including former sub-postmaster Sir Alan Bates, have called for a March 2025 deadline for the compensation of all those involved in the legal action against the Post Office. Thomas agreed that faster progress was required, but warned that it would be difficult to achieve Sir Alan’s proposed deadline.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Thomas conceded that he couldn’t commit to Sir Alan’s timeframe, but expected progress to be made by next summer. However, Hamilton argued that payments could be made by the end of March if a “broad brush approach” was used and that some sub-postmasters had not submitted claims as they needed evidence from Post Office, which she criticised as being “like the fox in the henhouse”.
The faulty Horizon IT accounting system led to over 900 sub-postmasters being wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015, resulting in the largest miscarriage of justice in British legal history. Compounding their plight, some were imprisoned, while many more were financially devastated and some died before compensation was paid. The government subsequently established a compensation scheme for victims who have been financially affected; however, in 2019, the landmark group legal action against the Post Office resulted in compensation being swallowed by legal costs.
Thomas acknowledged that the compensation process had been slow and that progress needed to be made. Four compensation schemes are currently in place, of which two are run by the government and two by the Post Office. Although there have been concerns about legal costs, Thomas did not call for the process to be restarted, arguing that doing so would only lead to further delays
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