Kelvin MacKenzie, a former newspaper editor and conservative columnist, laid into the latest revelations in the Post Office scandal.
Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, Mr MacKenzie said that Britain would “have to build more prisons to house all the Fujitsu and Post Office senior staff”.
This comes after Paul Patterson, a senior executive of Fujitsu, admitted that staff at the Japanese company knew of bugs in the Horizon software.
Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office privately prosecuted hundreds of sub-postmasters and post-mistresses based on Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon computer software.
More than 900 were prosecuted over claims they were stealing from the Post Office – but the missing money was actually due to errors in the Horizon software.
The hard-hitting columnist also urged authorities to speed up compensation to the hundreds of innocent victims.
He said: “This is incredible. Paul Patterson, the European boss of Fujitsu has just told the judge led inquiry that the tech giant knew from 1999 – and passed on to the Post Office – the fact that there were multiple glitches in the Horizon software.
“And he said the fact that the bugs were not included in the witness statements during the multiple court cases against the sub-postmasters was ‘shameful’.
“We are going to have to build more prisons to house all the Fujitsu and Post Office senior staff who will be going to jail before this scandal ends.
“Notice that even the Fujitsu bosses have washed their hands of their old colleagues.
“And can we please, please speed up the compensation payments to the innocent. It’s the least that can be done.”
Giving evidence in person for the first time to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, Mr Patterson said staff knew about bugs and glitches in the software as far back as 1999.
The director of the Japanese firm’s Europe arm said the firm had “clearly let society down, and the sub-postmasters down”.
Earlier this week, he said he was “truly sorry” for Fujitsu’s role in what he described as an “appalling miscarriage of justice”.
Fujitsu has said it plans to compensate those wronged in the Post Office scandal.
The scandal was brought back into focus following the release of the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
The Government has also announced a new law to exonerate victims.
However, only 93 wrongful convictions have been overturned.
Thousands are still waiting for compensation settlements more than 20 years on.
The global chief executive of Fujitsu, Takahito Tokita, also apologised for the firm’s part in the scandal earlier this week.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Tokita said: “This is a big issue, which Fujitsu takes very seriously.”
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Source: www.express.co.uk
This notice was published: 2024-01-19 20:50:00
