At least 13 postmasters may have taken their own lives after being accused of wrongdoing during the Horizon IT scandal, while at least 59 people who experienced problems with the Post Office’s Horizon IT system contemplated suicide
That was one of the findings of the first report into the Post Office Horizon Scandal under its Chair Sir Wyn Williams
In the report, Sir Wyn Williams recounted the “disastrous” human impact of the Horizon scandal and makes 19 urgent recommendations about redress.
It concluded that a number of senior and not so senior employees of Post Office “knew or should have known that Horizon…was a capable of error” yet “maintained the fiction that it’s data was always accurate”.
The 162 page report also found that “it seems likely that approximately 1,000” people were prosecuted and convicted “based on Horizon evidence” during the 16-year period while “wholly unacceptable behaviour” had been perpetrated by “a number of individuals employed by and/or associated with the Post Office and Fujitsu” and the institutions themselves “from time to time”.
