“The primary and sole focus at present remains the offences of perverting the course of justice and perjury and this has not changed. However, as was done with fraud offences previously, advice is being sought from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) around the offences of corporate and gross negligent manslaughter,” the NPCC said without elaborating on possible targets.

Separately, the NPCC said it was appealing for victims who signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with the Post Office to come forward and speak to its investigation team. The NDAs would no longer be enforced, the NPCC said.

False Horizon

The Post Office started using Fujitsu’s Horizon accounting system in 1999, initially as ‘legacy’ Horizon until 2010 and then in a second version called Horizon Online, or HNG-X. Its purpose was to automate sales, stocktaking, and accounting across 18,500 post offices. Sub-postmasters were migrated from a paper-based accounting system to an online one that recorded all money going into and out of their accounts centrally.