Sir Alan Bates questions UK government commitment to Post Office criminal investigation

The UK government needs to increase funding for police investigation of Post Office scandal crimes, or face a five-year delay

Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Published: 26 May 2026 20:00

The national investigation into crimes committed during the Post Office scandal could be drawn out for a further five years unless it “urgently” receives “additional and sustained” funding, according to the man leading it.

Operation Olympos, as the investigation is known, needs to double the size of its investigation team if it is to submit files to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) by the target date of early 2028.

Commander Stephen Clayman, who is leading Operation Olympos, said: “We recently received a Home Office Special Grant of £2.8m, which goes some way to supporting our costs, but the reality is that we urgently need additional and sustained funding to meet our projected budget of up to £19.3m for 2026/27 and beyond.”

Sir Alan Bates questioned the government’s commitment to the investigation in light of the funding shortfall. “It is all highly reminiscent of the Post Office trying to run the victims out of money in the courts, to stop us exposing the truth,” he said. “It seems that the government ... is trying to reduce funding to minimise the impact and to push the truth further away.”

According to the police, without double the number of staff on the operation, timelines would be pushed back by as much as five years, which they said would be “unacceptable for those who have already been living with this for decades”.

In the latest operational update, the Metropolitan Police said the current team of 111 Operation Olympos investigators needs to be increased to 210. It warned that without this, its target to submit files to the CPS would be missed by up to half a decade.

Operation Olympos was set up in May 2024, following the broadcast of the Post Office scandal-based drama Mr Bates versus the Post Office, which triggered public anger.

The Post Office scandal saw hundreds of subpostmasters wrongly prosecuted and convicted of financial crimes due to unexplained account shortfalls that were eventually found to have been caused by errors in the Horizon system. Many were jailed and thousands lost their livelihoods and had their lives turned upside down after repaying the unexplained losses.

We do not have the luxury of time, and must provide answers as soon as possible to those who so desperately deserve them

Stephen Clayman, Operation Olympus lead

The police have so far interviewed, under caution, 13 of the 53 people of interest, seven more than the last update six months ago. Police said they now have eight million documents related to the scandal, with this number increasing. Prosecutors have already been consulted by police through early investigative advice files.

Regarding the funding, a government spokesperson said: “The Post Office Horizon IT scandal was an appalling injustice. It is important that victims’ voices are heard and the causes identified through the public inquiry, and full and fair redress is paid out quickly to those who suffered.

“The Home Office has provided £3.2m since 2023 to the Metropolitan Police Service for Operation Olympos, and has allocated a further £2.8m in 26/27 and is considering requests for further funding.”

In comparison, taxpayers, through the Post Office, paid one law firm £86m between 2000 and 2024 to represent the Post Office at the scandal public inquiry. In total, Horizon IT scandal-related legal costs to taxpayers extend into the hundreds of millions of pounds.

Furthermore, just recently it was revealed that the taxpayer-funded Post Office is paying a crisis PR company, DRD Partnership, £2.4m for work between March 2025 and January 2029 as it fights legal claims by victims of the scandal.

Commander Clayman said: “Put simply, we do not have the luxury of time, and must provide answers as soon as possible to those who so desperately deserve them. Through the many conversations we’ve had with subpostmasters over the course of our investigation so far, we have been honest about these challenges and the scale of what lies ahead. This includes overcoming funding challenges at a time when police forces are already severely stretched.”

As Computer Weekly revealed in 2020, the Met Police began assessing evidence of potential perjury offences committed by Fujitsu staff in criminal trials of subpostmasters prosecuted for accounting errors caused by a computer system.

In January that year, the director of public prosecutions referred the concerns of High Court judge Peter Fraser about the accuracy of evidence given by Fujitsu staff in criminal trials to the Metropolitan Police. This followed his judgment that found errors in the Horizon system had caused the unexplained branch account shortfalls experienced by subpostmasters.

Three months later, the Met Police began assessing the evidence, and in November 2021, it opened a criminal investigation into Fujitsu staff who gave evidence in trials of subpostmasters. Operation Olympos was set up in 2024.

The Post Office scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, when it revealed the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to the accounting software (see timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal below).

Sir Alan Bates questions UK government commitment to Post Office criminal investigation

The UK government needs to increase funding for police investigation of Post Office scandal crimes, or face a five-year delay

Timeline: Computer Weekly articles about the scandal since 2009

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