The Post Office Horizon scandal saw approximately 1,000 subpostmasters wrongfully prosecuted in what has been dubbed as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history.
On Tuesday, the scale of the human impact of the scandal was revealed as the first volume of the public inquiry’s final report was published.
Chairman Sir Wyn Williams concluded that a “number of senior” people at the organisation were aware that the system, known as Legacy Horizon, was capable of error up until it was changed in 2010.
Some employees were also aware that the updated system, Horizon Online, also had bugs and defects.
Lead campaigner and former subpostmistress Jo Hamilton said the report “shows the full scale of the horror that they unleashed on us”.
The chairman’s 162-page report criticised the “unnecessarily adversarial attitude” of the Post Office and its advisers towards making compensation offers to victims and that the organisation and the Government “simply failed to grasp how difficult it would be to provide appropriate financial redress.”
The publication of the first tranche of the report on Tuesday focused solely on the devastating impact of the scandal on victims and the compensation offered to subpostmasters, with a further report potentially attributing blame expected at a later date.
Here is a breakdown of the scandal and the first volume of the report in numbers:
- People were wrongfully convicted for errors caused by the Horizon software over 16 years, from 1999 until 2015.
- According to the first final report by Sir Wyn Williams, the chairman of the probe, around 10,000 people are currently eligible to make claims in the existing compensation schemes. It is expected that this number will rise by hundreds or more in the coming months.
- The inquiry heard evidence from 59 people who had contemplated suicide and “attributed it to their experiences with Horizon and/or the Post Office”. Of those, the report said 10 attempted to take their lives, some on more than one occasion.
- Sir Wyn said he does not rule out “a real possibility” that there is a “causal connection” between the suicides of 13 people and Horizon. “It is also possible that more than 13 persons, as indicated by the Post Office in response to the inquiry’s requests in March 2025, died by suicide, but that some deaths have not been reported to the Post Office or the Inquiry,” the report said.
- Approximately 1,000 people were prosecuted and convicted in the UK during the period over which the inquiry is concerned, the report said.
- There are four main compensation schemes which the inquiry has investigated.
- The 555 postmasters who took the Post Office to the High Court are eligible for the Group Litigation Order (GLO) scheme.
- £75,000 – how much claimants in the GLO and Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS) can accept as full and final settlements of their claims. Alternatively, they can ask for their claim to be fully assessed.
- £600,000 – the amount applicants of the Overturned Convictions Process (OC) and Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme (HCRS) can accept in full and final settlement of their claims. They can also choose to have their claims fully assessed.
- In June, the Government said more than £1 billion had been paid out to subpostmasters affected by the Horizon IT scandal.
- 298 witnesses gave oral evidence in the inquiry, which took place over more than three years.
- There were 226 days of hearings in the inquiry from February 2021 to December 2024.
- 788 witness statements, made up of 24,142 pages, were published on the inquiry’s website.
- There were 274,604 documents disclosed to core participants of the inquiry.
- The 162-page report, which will be laid before Parliament on Tuesday, makes 19 urgent recommendations.
If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.
If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call or text 988, or visit 988lifeline.org to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you
