Metropolitan Police offers upgrade on Operation Olympos, its nationwide examination into prospective criminality in the Post Office Horizon scandal
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Karl Flinders, Chief press reporter and senior editor EMEA
Existing and previous Post Office personnel, attorneys and civil servants might all be questioned as part of the Metropolitan Police's nationwide examination into criminal activities connected to the Post Office Horizon scandal.
In an upgrade of its Operation Olympos, Met Police leader Stephen Clayman, who is leading the examination, stated cops will “go where the proof takes” them, without any individual or criminal activity out of the scope of the examination. He stated there are 100 policemans from 4 local systems dealing with Olympos, which has actually currently recognized lots of individuals of interest to the examination.
More than 1.5 million files are presently being examined and countless victims have actually been talked to. The Met's examination will return to the roll-out of the Horizon system in 1999.
The Post Office scandal saw numerous subpostmasters mistakenly prosecuted due to inexplicable account shortages that were triggered by mistakes in the Horizon system. Thousands lost their incomes and had their lives turned upside down after paying back the unusual losses.
The authorities examination, at first taking a look at the prospective criminal activities of perjury and perverting the course of justice, remains in stage one, concentrated on “essential people” associated with subpostmaster prosecutions. Stage 2 will examine broader offenses.
As Computer Weekly exposed, in 2020, the Met Police started evaluating proof of prospective perjury offenses devoted by Fujitsu personnel in criminal trials of subpostmasters prosecuted for accounting mistakes brought on by a computer system.
In January that year, the director of public prosecutions (DPP) referred the issues of High Court judge Peter Fraser about the precision of proof provided by Fujitsu personnel in criminal trials to the Metropolitan Police. This followed his judgment that discovered mistakes in the Horizon system had actually triggered the unusual branch account shortages experienced by subpostmasters.
3 months later on, the Met Police started examining proof of prospective perjury offenses. In November 2021, it opened a criminal examination into Fujitsu personnel who offered proof in trials of subpostmasters. These were tech employees Gareth Jenkins and Anne Chambers.
This year, the Metropolitan Police established a nationwide examination– now called Operation Olympos– into the Post Office scandal. This followed public outrage stired by ITV's dramatisation of the Post Office scandal.
Clayman stated cops would at first examine people for the possible criminal offenses of perjury and perverting the course of justice, however did not eliminate examining the Post Office for scams. This remains in relation to its policy of requiring subpostmasters to pay back inexplicable shortages.
In October, throughout a public query hearing, outbound Post Office CEO Nick Read stated it had actually up until now been developed that the Post Office took about ₤ 36m in between 1999 and 2015 from subpostmasters,
