Provider of faulty computer system apologizes to hundreds affected by UK Post Office scandal

LONDON — Fujitsu, the company whose faulty computer accounting system resulted in the wrongful conviction of hundreds of Post Office branch managers across the U.K., apologized to the victims on Tuesday for its role in the one of the country’s biggest miscarriages of justice and said it was long aware that the software had bugs. “To the sub-postmasters and their families, Fujitsu would like to apologize for our part in this appalling miscarriage of justice.” Patterson said he had spoken with his bosses in Japan and that Fujitsu knew “from the very start” that the system, known as Horizon, had “bugs and errors,” and that, despite that, had helped the Post Office in its prosecutions of branch managers after unexplained losses were found in their accounts. Three years later, the High Court in London ruled that Horizon contained a number of “bugs, errors and defects” and that the Post Office “knew there were serious issues about the reliability” of the system. “People are suffering; they’re dying.” Wrongfully convicted former branch manager Jo Hamilton, one of the protagonists in the TV drama, said she had been “gaslit” by the Post Office into thinking that it was her own fault and that the compensation procedure was “almost like you’re being retried.” Lawyer Neil Hudgell said the scandal may have affected “tens of thousands” of people if the families of victims were taken into account.