Shropshire MP calls on Fujitsu to compensate Post Office Horizon scandal victims
Technology giant Fujitsu should be ordered to compensate Post Office workers wrongly convicted of crimes because of a glitch with its computer software, says Shrewsbury's MP.
Daniel Kawczynski asked Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch to call on Fujitsu to pay compensation to sub-postmasters who were wrongly convicted between 2000 and 2014.
More than 900 post-office workers were prosecuted for theft, false accounting and fraud for shortfalls at their branches, but it later emerged that the discrepancies were caused by a fault with the Horizon computer system developed by Fujitsu.
They include Rubbina Shaheen, a former constituent of Mr Kawczynski, who was wrongly jailed for six months for false accounting in December 2010.
She was initially accused of stealing £40,000 from Greenfields Post Office in Shrewsbury, but the Post Office agreed to drop the prosecution for theft if she admitted the lesser charge.
Her conviction was overturned in April 2021 after the scandal had been uncovered.
Mr Kawczynski called on Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake to ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade if she will call on Fujitsu to compensate the sub-postmasters who were wrongly convicted between 2000 and 2014.
Mr Hollinrake told Mr Kawczynski that it would be inappropriate to make such a demand on Fujitsu until Sir Wyn Williams' public inquiry into the scandal had been concluded.
"The Government has set up a statutory inquiry into the Post Office Horizon scandal," he said.
"Collective and individual accountability for the scandal can only be considered when the inquiry has reviewed all the evidence."
