Computer staff in Post-office case could be prosecuted

Mr Justice Fraser last month ruled in favour of more than 550 former post office staff, including a woman from Shropshire, who said a computer glitch led to them being wrongly blamed for financial discrepancies.

The workers – including Telford’s Tracy Felstead who was jailed for six months after being convicted of theft – will now share damages totalling £58 million after the Post Office agreed to settle out of court.

But after publishing his judgment, which ruled that the financial discrepancies could have been caused by a computer glitch, Judge Fraser said he was concerned about the evidence given by representatives of computer giant Fujitsu. The company developed the Horizon computer system which has been blamed for creating the accounting shortfalls.

Judge Fraser said he would be asking Director of Public Prosecutions Max Hill QC to consider whether action should be brought against employees of computer giant Fujitsu over evidence they gave at previous court hearings.

This could mean witnesses who gave evidence against the former post office workers could go on trial themselves.

Judge Fraser said: "Based on the knowledge that I have gained both from conducting the trial and writing the Horizon Issues judgment, I have very grave concerns regarding the veracity of evidence given by Fujitsu employees to other courts in previous proceedings about the known existence of bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon system.

Consideration

"These previous proceedings include the High Court in at least one civil case brought by the Post Office against a sub- postmaster and the crown court in a greater number of criminal cases, also brought by the Post Office against sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses.

"After very careful consideration, I have therefore decided, in the interests of justice, to send the papers in the case to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Max Hill QC, so he may consider whether the matter to which I have referred should be the subject of any prosecution.

"I wish to make it clear that the specific subject to which I will drawing the specific attention of the DPP relates to the evidence on previous occasions of Fujitsu employees."

In his ruling, Judge Fraser accused Fujitsu's Andy Dunks and Stephen Parker of deliberately attempting to mislead the court.

He said Mr Dunks, Fujitsu's IT security analyst, "expressly sought to mislead" him, and said he was "very unsatisfactory as a witness." He also accused Mr Parker, a senior executive in charge of the Post Office account, of giving "wholly unsatisfactory evidence".

The third of four trials in the High Court was due to be heard this year, but was abandoned after the Post Office agreed to pay £58 million in damages and costs to the 550 former post office workers who brought the group action.

Miss Felstead, of Bournside Drive, Brookside, Telford, is now seeking to have her 2001 conviction overturned, along with 54-year-old Rubbina Shaheen, from Worthen, near Shrewsbury.

Mrs Shaheen, who kept Greenfields Post Office in Shrewsbury, was jailed for 12 months in 2010 for false accounting. She was not part of the High Court action, but is seeking to have her conviction overturned through the Criminal Cases Review Commission.