Since the rollout of the Horizon IT system in 1999/2000, the Post Office has been unable to tell the difference between computer error and fraud. Whilst relentlessly pursuing innocent people, it potentially failed to spot the multiple ways public money could be leaking out of its network. In a podcast I hosted last year (Ep 34: Where Did All The Money Go?), Second Sight’s Ron Warmington and former Subpostmaster Mark Baker counted up at least 14 ways the Post Office, Subpostmasters and Fujitsu could lose cash.

One area raised by Ron and Mark was internal fraud, either at Fujitsu, which operated and maintained the Horizon system, or within the Post Office. There are a number of ways in which it could happen, but whilst the Post Office was prosecuting Subpostmasters these were never properly considered, let alone investigated, so there is, as yet, no proof it ever did.

The easiest way would be via collusion, requiring one bent Subpostmaster and one bent Fujitsu or Post Office employee. Thanks to the Subpostmaster contract, which allowed Subpostmasters to keep surplus balances – no questions asked – it would be a relatively simple matter to divert funds from one (or multiple) branches to a bent branch and then remove those funds from that branch in cash. This could be done manually at numerous points in the Post Office back-office financial chain (eg at Chesterfield where manual transaction corrections were issued), or via a clever scamp at Fujitsu who could either manually divert funds by adjusting balances or create a routine which took £10 from 500 random branches each week and diverted those small sums to one specific branch, or even a fictitious client account.

This might be a fantasy. It is possible that all Post Office and Fujitsu employees were paragons of virtue and none considered or attempted, let alone successfully managed to remove any money from the system despite the lax controls, and an institutional willingness to believe that Subpostmasters were on the take.

Tim’s letter to the Inquiry

I have posted below, with permission, a letter written to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry by Tim Chapman, a current Subpostmaster. It is conjecture, but I think it is worth publishing in order to attempt to build some kind of body of evidence which raises the possibility of how internal fraud might be or might have been happening within the network.

A few months back, former Subpostmaster Penny Williams told me her sister and sister’s boss analysed printouts sent to her by the Post Office and concluded that something or someone was removing small amounts of money from her account on a regular basis. Sadly Penny has not subsequently been able to get her hands on those printouts – or if she has, she hasn’t given them to me!

There is also a comment below this blog post which asserts that Fujitsu employees were able to, and did, shift money out of Subpostmaster accounts. It read:

“Mr Wallis, twenty years ago I worked in a technical capacity in FUJITSU UK.
I have information you will find useful and which any Public Inquiry must know too.
It establishes criminal culpability on the part of the corporation as well as highups like Crozier and Vennells among the clients, since it proves they knew fully about backdoor access but instructed the POL solicitors to suppress any disclosure of this to defendants and courts.
While I put through no phantom entries myself, I was aware how commonplace it was, and the trivially easy overriding of the rudimentary audit trail embedded in the software too. What started as a prank swiftly became a crime, I prefer to believe most of the perpetrators never seriously consider that POL would treat the discrepancies so seriously and initiate prosecutions. It got totally out of hand. 90% of the phantoms were “against” the agents, thus unjustly enriching POL. Did you notice the disproportionate number of victims whose agent locations were in Wales?
I am able to provide you personally with much more, redacted only to protect my own identity. The FUJITSU non-disclosure agreement is probably more bone chilling than that used by POL, I do not wish at this stage in my life to be bankrupted. I know you are protecting some of your sources because so much of your book is accurate and it cannot all be down to deductive skill and luck. I’ve taken many steps, in addition to using TOR, to obfuscate my ID while making this posting; if I have an email address to which I could send material, I can give you all you need to pass on to the Police or CPS or the Enquiry.
Please provide a throwaway email address which I can use. The email address I provided here is a dummy.”

My multiple attempts to contact the poster of the above comment have failed. They might be mischief-making. If so, they succeeded.

But by posting the above together with Tim’s letter below there is the possibility it might trigger more interest from someone who might have something concrete to tell me. Sending me a message is easy and can be done via the contact form on this website, which pings an email straight to my inbox. This is a secure and confidential process.

Here is Tim’s letter as sent to Sir Wyn Williams, the Inquiry chair:

25th August 2024

Dear Sir Wyn Williams,

REF: Possible criminal activity within Fujitsu or Post Office running parallel to Horizon’s other problems.

I have been the Sub Postmaster for Yalding Post Office since July 2011. I took over the Post Office upon my retirement from the London Fire Brigade.  I was only 55 at the time and I only lived immediately next door so it seemed a good way to keep myself busy and be a contributing person within our village community.

I am fairly computer literate and got to grips with Horizon fairly quickly. I worked on my own most of the time, it is only a small village branch. The previous Post Mistress, of over 30 years’ experience, helped out on our busy Monday mornings for about a year. I made mistakes fairly regularly, but I had the assistance of her and the Helpline if required.  So, after a few months the mistakes got fewer and I started to enjoy the job a lot more. I still enjoy the job today.

Thankfully the well documented Horizon problems currently being investigated didn’t appear to affect me or the running of the branch.  

However, every few months I would notice £100 go missing (It was always £100). I do a daily cash count and check that against Horizon’s figures, and generally they tally quite happily fairly close together. Banking transactions of £100 are pretty much the most usual daily transactions. I would check the transaction log, but generally that would only tell of the ones that were confirmed, not of any unfulfilled ones. I assumed that I had made an error somewhere, despite being very careful where cash withdrawals were concerned. If the error could not be found I would have to balance the books using my own money.

I spoke to the previous Post Mistress and she told me that this had happened to her fairly regularly too.

I also regularly attended the local meetings for the National Federation of Sub Postmasters (the Fed) and one day in 2013 I raised the question of the regular losses of £100 to one of their officers. I wish I could remember who it was. I was informed quite categorically that Horizon was faultless and that any shortages were my fault entirely and that if I tried to take it further Post Office would tell me exactly that and the Fed could not have anything to do with it.  I was further informed that nobody could have any remote access to my Horizon account.

This was a bit of a surprise to me, even I know that computer systems can have problems, and most programmes have a back entrance in order to correct errors and bugs, but I took him at his word and left the issue alone. Stupidly I did not document or keep any of the paperwork involved…  

The fairly regular losses of £100 continued into 2015 and appeared to stop at about the same time as Horizon was upgraded. My estimate of loss personally is probably only £500 – £600. I still occasionally make mistakes to this day, but these do not conform to any discernible pattern. I do not expect to ever get any of my money back.  

My theory at the time, which I still think is the most likely scenario, is that there was some criminal activity taking place within the computer system itself. After the Bates v Post Office court case of 2018 – 19, we all now know full well that Fujitsu employees had been regularly secretly accessing branch Horizon accounts for years and I personally think that one or more of them were somehow stealing the money from me, and possibly many other Post Office branches throughout the UK. If this was indeed the case, the total amount stolen could be a very large sum indeed.

I have spoken with other Sub Postmasters and several of them recall similar incidents in that period of time up till 2015.

About a year ago I raised this issue with my Post Office area manager. Her advice was to submit a claim to the Shortfall Scheme. This I have done, and I am waiting for Post Office to come back to me for further enquiry.

I am aware that the possible scenario of criminal activity of the manner I have raised here has not been raised at the Post Office Inquiry, but this may well be something that should perhaps be considered a possibility and investigated further.

It also maybe something that the current Inquiry cannot consider, and in reality, I’m expecting to be told that such a scenario is impossible and, yes, those shortfalls were all my fault entirely. 

I apologise for taking up your valuable time Sir.

Yours sincerely

Tim Chapman

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