Post Office investigation could be delayed by five years, police warn

The criminal investigation into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal could be delayed by five years unless it receives millions of pounds in extra funding, police chiefs have warned.

Stephen Clayman, the commander leading the national police inquiry, said the size of the investigation team needs to double to meet its current timeline of submitting files for potential prosecutions by late next year or early 2028. The inquiry, known as Operation Olympos, currently has 111 detectives but requires another 99 to manage the complex case.

Clayman stated that a delay would be "unacceptable for those who have already been living with this for decades." He added that overcoming funding challenges comes at a time when police forces are already "severely stretched."

First introduced in 1999, the Horizon IT system falsely created accounting shortfalls in Post Office branches, for which sub-postmasters were held liable. The scandal has been called the UK's most widespread miscarriage of justice, resulting in the prosecution of more than 900 people. Some individuals were imprisoned, while others died before receiving justice.

Operation Olympos began in 2020 as a joint national police investigation between the National Police Chiefs' Council and the Metropolitan Police Service, with involvement from police forces across the UK. The bulk of the investigation is funded by individual forces, but it also relies on grants from the Home Office. Clayman said that while the inquiry received £2.8 million from the Home Office, it remains £16.5 million short of the funding needed for the current financial year to increase detective numbers.

Seema Misra OBE, a sub-postmaster who was jailed while pregnant in 2010 after being wrongly accused of stealing £74,000 from her Surrey branch, expressed frustration over the funding shortfall. "How can the government spend hundreds of millions of pounds on lawyers dragging this out but it's different for the common people to get justice? We need accountability," she said.

Detectives are currently managing more than eight million documents, with many requiring forensic review. "Only by doing this can we piece together exactly what happened, establish who knew what and understand the role suspects may have played," Clayman said.

Seven additional suspects have been interviewed under caution this year, bringing the total number of questioned individuals to 13 out of 53 currently under investigation. Clayman noted the high threshold required for criminal charges, stating: "As we have always said, the threshold to bring criminal charges is high, so we must be confident that the evidence we present to the Crown Prosecution Service has the best possible chance of meeting this bar. We cannot underestimate the task in hand. Through the many conversations we've had with sub-postmasters over the course of our investigation so far, we have been honest about those challenges and the scale of what lies ahead."

A government spokesperson described the scandal as "an appalling injustice" and stated that the government is "considering requests for further funding." The spokesperson added: "It is important that victims' voices are heard and that the causes identified through the public inquiry, and full and fair redress is paid out quickly to those who suffered."