Post Office Scandal – live: MPs grill ‘sorry’ Fujitsu boss as Alan Bates says he’s not received compensation
Fujitsu’s Europe chief says he is ‘truly sorry’ for role in ‘appalling miscarriage of justice’ at Commons Business and Trade Committee hearing
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A boss from Fujitsu has issued an apology to victims of the Post Office Scandal - as victim and lead campaigner Alan Bates revealed he was still waiting for his first compensation offer.
Paul Patterson, director of Europe’s Fujitsu Services Limited, started his appearance before the Commons Business and Trade Committee by saying he was “truly sorry” for its role in the “appalling miscarriage of justice”.
Sitting alongside him, Post Office boss Nick Read said there had been a “cultural of denial” at the organisation when asked why it fought the provision of compensation to those who were unfairly punished for so long.
The pair were speaking after former postmaster Mr Bates revealed he was still waiting for his first compensation offer from his claim in the Post Office Scandal.
MP Liam Byrne, chairing the committee, says the evidence presented by Mr Patterson and Mr Read had left members feeling “fairly shocked”.
The scandal centres on the faulty Horizon IT system, made by Fujitsu, which made it appear as though money was missing, leading to the conviction of hundreds of postmasters by the Post Office.
Post Office and Fujitsu leave MPs ‘feeling fairly shocked'
Closing the session with Paul Patterson, director of Europe’s Fujitsu Services Limited, and Nick Read, Post Office boss, MP Liam Byrne, who is charing the committee, says the pair have left members feeling “fairly shocked” by their evidence, or lack of.
He says: “You have left us I think feeling fairly shocked, you’ve not been able to supply the committee with key events in the timeline such as when the Post Office first knew that remote access was possible.
“You’ve told us that you haven’t kept evidence safe about what money was paid to you inappropriate and therefore what is owed back and you can’t estimate the scale of compensation
“We are grateful for the moral committment from Fujitsu that they will share in the compensation payment but that leaves us many questions which we need to put to the minister which is the subject of our next session.”
We are pausing our updates for the evening, thanks for following along.
We’ll be back with more updates from the Post Office inquiry tomorrow.
Watch: Wrongly convicted sub-postmaster says the Post Office “turning her into a basket case”
The Fujitsu apology and pledge to help with compensation
At the start of giving evidence, Paul Patterson, director of Europe’s Fujitsu Services Limited, issued the apology. “We were involved from the very start,” he said. “We did have bugs and errors in the system. And we did help the Post Office in their prosecutions of subpostmasters. For that we are truly sorry.”
He then told MPs that there was a “moral obligation for the company to contribute” to compensation.
“It’s also important that the inquiry deals with these very complex matters,” he said. “In that context, absolutely we have a part to play and to contribute to the redress, I think is the words that Mr Bates used, the redress fund for the subpostmasters.”
MPs grill boss of Fujitsu
It emerged during the five-hour session that Paul Patterson, director of Europe’s Fujitsu Services Limited, unlike the Post Office chief executive, had not met any of those sub-postmasters impacted by the convictions he admitted his company helped Post Office wrongly deliver.
Asked why not, Mr Patterson, who has held his role since 2019 but has worked at the company for more than a decade, said: “I have not not decided to meet victims - I have personally watched the drama on TV and read the evidence that was given in the impact statments by sub-postmasters and I have also watched some of the YouTube video of it.”
And grilled on why his Japanese-based company did nothing about the glitches in the Horizon system despite knowing about them early on after its introduction in 1999, he replied “I don’t know. I really don’t know.” He later said the company did make the Post Office aware of technical issues with the system during the prosecutions.
A long way to go yet for campaigners
Twenty years it has taken for campaigners for news that those prosecuted during the Post Office Scandal will have their convictions overturned - but events on Monday revealed there was still some way to go.
Facing a panel of MPs on Tuesday, the Europe director for Fujitsu, Paul Patterson, delivered a strong apology to the sub-postmaster found guilty over glitches in its IT software installed at Post Office branches.
Mr Patterson went a step further to say the company had a “morale obligation” to contribute to the compensation.
However, as expressed by a “fairly shocked” Business and Trade Committee chairman Liam Byrne, both Mr Patterson and the chief executive of the Post Office, Nick Read, were still unable to estimate the scale of the compensation owed.
And speaking at the beginning or the morning session, former postmaster Alan Bates, dramatised in the ITV show Mr Bates vs The Post Office, revealed he had not yet received his first compensation offer - “it’s madness”, he said.
His evidence, coupled with fellow Jo Hamilton, who had her criminal conviction overturned in 2021, showed the campaign for justice, and compensation, was not over yet.
Fujitsu CEO ‘sorry’ over postmaster scandal
Approached in the street while attending the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland, the global chief executive of Fujitsu, Takahito Tokita, apologised to those impacted by the company’s Horizon IT system.
He told a BBC journalist: “Apologse to the [inaudible] the impact on the postmasters’ lives and that of their families.”
‘Morale obligation for the company to contribute'
Key point from today was Fujitsu, which was behind the glitched Horizon software at the centre of the scandal, agreeing it owed money to the compensation scheme.
Paul Patterson, director of Europe’s Fujitsu Services Limited, told MPs that there was a “moral obligation for the company to contribute” to compensation.
“It’s also important that the inquiry deals with these very complex matters,” he said.
“In that context, absolutely we have a part to play and to contribute to the redress, I think is the words that Mr Bates used, the redress fund for the subpostmasters.”
At Holyrood, Scotland’s top prosecutor has apologised to victims
Scotland’s top prosecutor has apologised to those who “suffered a miscarriage of justice” as a result of the Post Office Horizon scandal.
Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC said she wanted to “acknowledge the harm caused to the people in these cases who have suffered a miscarriage of justice”.
In a stattement to MSPs at Holyrood she said: “The wrongly accused and convicted subpostmasters and postmistresses are due an apology from those who have failed them, and I do that today as head of the system of criminal prosecution in Scotland.
“The Post Office is part of that system and I apologise for the failures of those in the Post Office who were responsible for investigating and reporting flawed cases.”
200,000 sign petition demanding government cut Fujitsu contacts
Fujitsu issued an apology at the hearing earlier - but that’s not enough for the tens of thousnad sof people who have signed a petition calling on the Government to stop handing contracts to Fujitsu.
The petition states contracts should only be provided after the firm was accountable for its role in the Post Office Horizon scandal.
Robin Priestley, campaigns director at 38 Degrees, which launched the petition, said: “Since the airing of Mr Bates vs The Post Offic’ we’ve seen the immense power that the public’s anger on this appalling issue can have.
“With the backing of over 1.2 million people, our petition for Paula Vennells to lose her CBE achieved its aim, but there’s much more to do to ensure that those who oversaw the scandal which ruined so many sub-postmasters’ lives are truly held accountable.
“One part of that is ensuring accountability for Fujitsu, who have gone on to rake in millions of pounds in public contracts, despite their role.”
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