The cost of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry is likely to be well over £50,000,000. Reports for the last financial year alone reveal the Inquiry cost £26,198,625 to run, more than the previous three years combined.

Figures quietly published on the Inquiry website show that in the twelve months to the end of March 2024, £8m was spent on Inquiry lawyers (with a generous £1.7m going to the Chair, Sir Wyn Williams, and his assessors).

Core participant lawyers cost a further £6,149,696 with “external document review lawyers” costing £5,523,680.

The first three years of the Inquiry’s existence to the end of March 2023 cost £21,939,012, making the total amount spent to the end of March this year £48,137,637. Phases 5, 6 and 7 of the Inquiry took place during the current financial year making it a certainty that the cost of the Inquiry will top £50m.

Former Subpostmaster Lee Castleton was taken to the High Court by the Post Office over an alleged £26,000 discrepancy in his accounts. He lost his case and was told to pay court costs of £300,000. He was eventually bankrupted. Today he said “Justice is very expensive in this country. Disclosure too. If nothing else people should be punished for costs alone.”

Another former Subpostmaster, Scott Darlington, whose criminal conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2021 said: “The inquiry has been brilliantly conducted. No question. But a cost of £50 million suggests even more people and organisations have become rich off the back of this scandal. So no surprises there.”

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