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LEADING ARTICLE

The Times view on the Post Office scandal: System Failure

Ministers continue to reward Fujitsu despite its role in the Horizon affair. It is time the firm was made to pay its share of compensation

The Times

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Police are investigating allegations of fraud relating to the Post Office
Police are investigating allegations of fraud relating to the Post Office
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At last those responsible for the Post Office ­scandal — the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history — are to be held accountable. Police are now investigating allegations of fraud by the state-owned firm, whose intransigence forced postmasters to make up phantom shortfalls caused by its faulty Horizon IT system out of their own pockets. Paula Vennells, its chief executive throughout the period it issued false denials that the software was faulty, may soon lose her CBE.

Yet Fujitsu, which provided and managed ­Horizon — whose rollout to 20,000 post offices amounted to the biggest non-military IT contract in Europe — has hitherto escaped censure. It is time it too was made to pay for the countless lives ruined between 1999 and 2015, and