Post Office 'not fit' to run pay-outs for victims

The Post Office is "not fit" to run any compensation schemes for victims of the Horizon scandal and should be removed, MPs have warned.

The Business and Trade Committee said in a report it is a "disgrace" that so little had paid to sub-postmasters.

Meanwhile, the Post Office's leadership is in "disarray", said MPs after its chairman was sacked and it emerged its chief executive is being investigated.

The firm has agreed to release the HR report at the centre of the row.

Labour MP Liam Byrne, chair of the committee, said: "It's high time for the circus of recent weeks to end and for cheques to start landing on the doormats of innocent victims."

The report showed that just £1 in £5 of a budget set aside for victims' compensation has been issued following what has been described as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British legal history.

Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted due to faulty software.

Incorrect information provided by a computer system called Horizon, developed by Japanese firm Fujitsu, meant that sub-postmasters and postmistresses were prosecuted for stealing money.

Many of those convicted went to prison for false accounting and theft. Many were financially ruined.

The report issued on Thursday cites both victims' lack of confidence in the Post Office that "ruined the lives of innocent sub-postmasters" and chaos seen in its leadership ranks in recent weeks.