The Software Was Full of Bugs. It Ruined Hundreds of Lives

A post office scandal has erupted in the UK thanks in large part to a TV drama. Hundreds of postmasters and postmistresses have long claimed they were wrongfully accused, and in some cases convicted, of theft after software erroneously showed money was missing from their accounts. Indeed, some 983 convictions for theft or false accounting were secured against people running British post offices between 1999 and 2015. But as the Wall Street Journal reports, that software was revealed to be faulty in 2009, and yet an inquiry and quest for justice "limped along"—until ITV ran a drama about it called Mr Bates vs. the Post Office in early January.

Public uproar followed, and now the UK is seeking to pass a law that would exonerate those who were wrongfully convicted and compensate them, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak calling the scandal an "appalling miscarriage of justice." Reuters explains that managers at Post Office branches are self-employed and "are often at the heart of their communities, trusted individuals who handle people's savings and pensions." And yet the Post Office had many of them prosecuted based on data from the defective Horizon electronic point-of-sale system—run by Japan's Fujitsu—that had been in place since 1999.

The Guardian reports hundreds of bugs began revealing themselves nearly from the get-go. The so-called "Dalmellington Bug," for instance, caused the screen to freeze when the user tried to confirm cash had been received. The frozen screen made it look as if the funds hadn't been recorded, when it fact each time the user pressed "enter" it did update. In one case, it caused a £24,000 discrepancy. As the Horizon system started reporting shortfalls in the accounts of individual branches, some postmasters had their contracts terminated; others went bankrupted or served time. Four died by suicide, reports the Journal.

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In 2009, a report from Computer Weekly unmasked the Horizon issues, leading to a Post Office investigation. And yet in 2015, a parliamentary committee was told by then-Post Office head Paula Vennells there was no sign that any miscarriage of justice had occurred. By late 2019, the Post Office agreed to settle hundreds of claims, but many say much of what they were paid was swallowed up by legal fees, or that they weren't paid at all. The BBC reports only 93 of the convictions have been overturned over the years. (More post office stories.)