Top 10 Post Office scandal stories of 2025

1) Post Office inquiry chair ‘cannot rule out’ scandal caused 13 suicides

In July, the chair of the Post Office scandal public inquiry said he could not rule out the “real possibility” that 13 people took their own lives as a result of their treatment by the Post Office after they suffered unexplained shortfalls in their branches.

In part one of his much-anticipated report, retired judge Wyn Williams presented his findings from the first phase of the public inquiry, which examined the human impact of the scandal. He also reported on the progress of the compensation schemes being run by the government and the Post Office.

Williams said: “The picture which has emerged and is described in my report is profoundly disturbing.”

2) Fujitsu boss said Post Office inquiry report wasn’t ‘that bad’, despite link to suicides

A senior leader at Fujitsu told colleagues the first report from the public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon scandal was “not that bad”, despite it linking problems with the IT supplier’s software to 13 suicides.

During a meeting in which he said he was speaking “candidly”, the member of the company’s top team, who has since left Fujitsu, also told staff that the supplier could get around its self-imposed public sector bidding pause by working as a subcontractor, with other suppliers fronting the bids.

His recorded remarks about the devastating inquiry findings were at odds with Fujitsu’s apologetic statements.

3)  Fujitsu’s £600m-plus prize with His Majesty’s ‘cash cow’ in 2025

In February, we reported that Fujitsu could land over half a billion pounds in contracts from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) alone this year as the UK public sector continued to reward the supplier, despite its role in the Post Office scandal.

HMRC is the biggest source of Fujitsu’s UK government income, but there are hundreds of millions of pounds more contracts across the public sector, which Fujitsu has or is bidding for.

The huge numbers come despite Fujitsu’s self-imposed pause on bidding for government contracts and as it continues to refuse to fully commit its contribution towards repairing some of the damage it caused. 

4)  Home Office Fujitsu contract is ‘de facto’ conflict of interest in Post Office police probe

In August, we revealed that a nationwide police investigation into the Post Office scandal faced conflict of interest questions over Fujitsu’s role in operating the network used by separate police forces to share information.

Peer James Arbuthnot described the contract as very concerning and questioned whether the government was “over a barrel to Fujitsu”.

The government extended Fujitsu’s Law Enforcement Community Network (LECN) contract in November 2024 through a £15m deal, despite the supplier being investigated in a Post Office scandal probe. There is a potential conflict of interest in having the network underpinning a major operational police activity run by a company whose former employees and actions are being investigated.

5) Seven main suspects under police investigation in national Post Office probe

In June, we reported that police were investigating 45 people in relation to potential crimes in the Post Office scandal, with seven so far formally identified as suspects.

The national police investigation, known as Operation Olympos, was announced last year by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), which is spearheading the work alongside the Metropolitan Police.

The team of 100 officers from across the country originally had 1.5 million documents to review, which has now reached the six million mark, after initial investigation. The number of documents and suspects is expected to rise, according to an NPCC statement. 

6) Former Post Office legal boss won’t escape police reach

The former Post Office general counsel, Jane MacLeod, who avoided questioning during the statutory public inquiry into the Post Office scandal, will not escape a police investigation, despite living abroad. 

According to one source, during a meeting updating victims on the Operation Olympos police investigation into the scandal, police representatives were asked whether individuals who are abroad could be questioned. Attendees at the update meeting were told they could, and, unprompted, a member of the investigation team named the former legal chief as an example.

7)  Post Office makes first official apology to Capture users

This year saw the Post Office make its first official apology to subpostmasters who used its faulty Capture accounting software and were blamed and punished for unexplained shortfalls.

Ken Tooby received a letter from a senior executive who “apologised sincerely and unreservedly” on behalf of the Post Office for “failings and impact” on Tooby’s late wife, June, who spent years challenging the Post Office over alleged shortfalls in the accounts at her branch in the north-east of England.

June Tooby, who died in 2020, was relentlessly pursued by the Post Office and never revealed to her husband the amount of pressure she was under.

8)  CCRC formally sends Post Office Capture referral to Court of Appeal

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) formally referred the first appeal against conviction of a Post Office Capture user to the Court of Appeal this year.

The appeal involves the case of Patricia Owen, who died in 2003. She pleaded not guilty to the theft of £6,000, but in 1998 was convicted and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, at Canterbury Crown Court.

In July, it emerged that the CCRC had decided Owen’s case would be referred for appeal, but it did not do so until 15 October.

9) CCRC refers case based on a third faulty Post Office system

In a further development this year, the Criminal Cases Review Commission referred a conviction based on a third Post Office IT system to the Court of Appeal.

The appeal by former subpostmaster Gareth Snow, who ran a branch in Denbighshire, potentially widens the Post Office scandal even further. Snow used the Post Office’s Automatic Payment Service (APS) and Automatic Payment Terminal (APT) when his branch shortfalls began to appear, eventually reaching almost £60,000.

Snow admitted that he falsified accounts, but said that it was because errors caused by the APT had resulted in accounting shortfalls.  

10) Post Office performs costly 30-year U-turn on Horizon

The Post Office’s decision to use a commercial off-the-shelf electronic point of sale (Epos) system to replace its problematic Horizon software saw the organisation perform a U-turn after 30 years.

The announcement in May that the Post Office is looking for an off-the-shelf Epos system, through a £169m contract, revealed a huge error of judgement in 1996.

Back then, when the project to automate branches was signed off, non-technical Post Office executives rejected calls for an off-the-shelf Epos system to be used – a decision that led to the development and deployment of the Horizon system, which is at the centre of the Post Office scandal.