Post Officer minister says people responsible for the Horizon scandal 'should go to jail'

Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake has said people responsible for the Horizon scandal “should go to jail”.

He joined victims of the scandal on Monday morning's edition of BBC Breakfast (April 8). Former subpostmasters spoke out about their own horrific ordeals in the aftermath of the scandal which has ruined hundreds of lives. More than 900 Post Office workers were convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting between 1999 and 2015, based on faulty Horizon data.

Their lives ripped apart by bankruptcy, prison time, and reputational ruin. Around 700 of these prosecutions were carried out by the Post Office. A public inquiry is currently ongoing and the Metropolitan Police is now investigating executives from the Post Office and its software provider, Fujitsu.

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Mr Hollinrake told BBC Breakfast: “The inquiry is unearthing the evidence, what you see now is a result of the inquiry, the statutory inquiry. The Metropolitan Police are undertaking an investigation – the Government doesn’t do that, the police do that.

“When evidence has been established, people should be prosecuted – that’s my view. And I think you, and other people I’ve spoken to, and I certainly feel, people within the Post Office, possibly further afield, should go to jail.”

He went on: “We have to go through a process, we believe in the rule of law – lots of people in this room, and other people, have not had the benefit of the rule of law. It has failed, failed these people, inexcusably.

“We do believe in process, that’s the country we are very proud to live in. But if the threshold is met, the evidence is there, where criminal prosecutions can be undertaken