Overview

• The government has disbursed more than £1 billion to over 7,300 former subpostmasters, settling 7,569 of 11,208 claims while 3,709 remain under review.
• Post Office minister Gareth Thomas said speeding up payments has been a priority since the current government took office in July 2024, with complex cases now being settled faster.
• Campaign leader Sir Alan Bates described the compensation schemes as ‘quasi-kangaroo courts’, accusing the Department for Business and Trade of altering goalposts during claims assessment.
• Fujitsu’s European director Paul Patterson told a parliamentary committee the firm was ‘truly sorry’ for its role in prosecutions based on flawed Horizon software, calling it an ‘appalling miscarriage of justice’.
• Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 subpostmasters faced prosecutions driven by Horizon system errors that led to bankruptcies, imprisonments and at least four suicides before a 2019 High Court ruling attributed the shortfalls to technical faults.