Easy News: what happened in the Horizon Post Office scandal

1. 

   In January, ITV showed a drama called Mr Bates versus the Post Office. Many people watched it and learned about how the Post Office treated people very badly between 1999 and 2015.

2. 

   Local branches of the Post Office are run by sub-postmasters. Thousands of people who did that job were hurt by the Post Office management.

3. 

   From 1999 to 2021, every sub-postmaster used a computer system called Horizon to keep track of the money in their branch. It would add up when people bought things, like a book of stamps.

4. 

   Horizon was made by Fujitsu corporation. The government had paid them many millions of pounds to make it. Before Horizon, Post Office branches used to use pen and paper to keep track of the money.

5. 

   Sometimes Horizon would make a mistake. When adding up the money, it would count some things twice. This made the system think that there should be more money in the branch than there was.

6. 

   For a long time, the Post Office said that Horizon never made mistakes. They said that if there was not enough money in the branch, then someone must have been stealing.

7. 

   The Post Office would accuse sub-postmasters of stealing and other crimes to hide the money. Some sub-postmasters would say they were guilty because they did not think they could win. Some were found guilty on false evidence from Horizon.

8. 

   It is hard to tell for sure, but people guess that around 3,000 sub-postmasters were blamed for mistakes made by Horizon, with 900 taken to court and 700 found guilty.

9. 

   Lots of sub-postmasters lost their jobs, money and businesses. Some had family arguments, health problems and even died because of the scandal.

10. 

    In 2009, Alan Bates formed a group called the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA). He had been a sub-postmaster but lost his job because of mistakes made by Horizon.

11. 

    Alan Bates wrote to Computer Weekly magazine about Horizon in 2004. Computer Weekly was the first magazine to tell the public about the British Post Office Scandal.

12. 

    In 2017, 555 sub-postmasters won a lawsuit against the Post Office. The judge said the Post Office needed to pay them almost £60 million pounds, but a lot of this went on paying legal fees.

13. 

    The Post Office Minister said the government has budgeted 1 billion pounds to give money to sub-postmasters who were punished unfairly. Some people think the Post Office is taking too long to decide who deserves the money.

14. 

    In 2021, there was a public inquiry into what happened at the Post Office, led by Sir Wyn Williams. The inquiry was to find out why the Post Office did this.

15. 

    Since the ITV programme was on TV, many people have learned about how the Post Office had treated people. The programme was watched by 10 million people.

16. 

    Since the programme was shown, Paula Vennels who was the boss of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019, returned her CBE to show that she's sorry. A CBE is a special award given to people who done a lot for the country or have achieved something big.

17. 

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