The criminal inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal is investigating more than 45 people, with seven identified as main suspects.
A “scaled up” national team of officers has been in place for over six months as part of Operation Olympos – dedicated to looking at crimes related to the Horizon Post Office scandal.
The number of suspects has increased to 7, since before Christmas, as part of a UK wide investigation involving 100 officers.
Four have now been interviewed under caution.
Hundreds of subpostmasters were wrongfully convicted of stealing after faulty computer software created false accounting shortfalls in Post Office branches between 1999 and 2015.
Commander Stephen Clayman, Gold Command for Operation Olympos, described a “huge shift” in terms of their investigation and “significant progress”.
“We’ve got over four million documents that are going to rise to about six million documents,” he said, “but we’re beginning to methodically work through those and looking at individuals who are associated with certain prosecutions.”
He described a “pool of about 45 people plus” classed as “persons of interest”, with that number “expected to grow”.
He added that officers have questioned “some” in the past and “more recently” and are looking at the offences of perverting the course of justice and perjury.
The “wider pool” of persons of interest is made up of Post Office investigators, lawyers, and “management” across Fujitsu and the Post Office.
The team of officers will be identifying actions which could amount to criminal offences on both an individual and corporate basis.
Any decisions made on whether to charge will not happen until after the Post Office inquiry findings are “published and reviewed”.
Victims have also been told that the police will not be reinvestigating every case but “taking a speculative look at cases” to focus on key people involved and evidence for prosecution.
