A second Post Office IT system is likely to have been faulty and may have led to sub-postmasters being wrongly convicted of criminal offences, a gover

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2024-10-05 17:00:12

A second Post Office IT system is likely to have been faulty and may have led to sub-postmasters being wrongly convicted of criminal offences, a government report has confirmed.

Capture, an early piece of accounting software developed in-house by the Post Office, was rolled out in the 1990s to around 2,500 Post Office branches.

A damning report published today concludes that there is a “reasonable likelihood” that Capture would have caused sub-postmasters to suffer financial shortfalls.

Sub-postmasters claim they suffered unexplained shortfalls when trying to balance the books and were then held responsible by Post Office investigators and in some cases convicted of criminal offences, in an apparent pre-cursor to the Horizon scandal.

i first revealed earlier this year how Capture victims were allegedly forced to hand over money, sacked, and in some cases, prosecuted.

In response to i‘s reporting, the Government commissioned US firm Kroll to carry out an independent investigation into the claims about Capture and its staff have spent several months interviewing alleged victims and Post Office staff to gather evidence.