• Swindon & Wiltshire Tech
• Wednesday January 10 2024
• Author Name: Peter Davison

Swindon’s BCS joins Horizon debate with support for investigations

The Swindon-based professional body for the information technology industry has backed the public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, which is attracting an unprecedented level of public attention since the screening of ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office.

This week BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT reiterated its support for the public enquiry and other investigations.

The scandal is a widespread and long-lasting series of individual miscarriages of justice which, between 1999 and 2015, involved over 700 subpostmasters being wrongly convicted of theft, false accounting and fraud when shortfalls at their branches were in fact due to errors of the Post Office’s Horizon accounting software.

In 2019, the High Court ruled that the Horizon system was faulty and in 2020 the government established a public inquiry.

Courts began to quash convictions from 2010. As of January 2024, some victims are still fighting to have their convictions overturned and receive compensation, the public inquiry is ongoing, and the Metropolitan Police is investigating the Post Office for potential fraud offences.

The software was developed by ICL Pathway, owned by the Japanese company Fujitsu, in Bracknell, Berkshire.

During the trial between the Post Office it was found that the IT system was unreliable and that faults in the system caused discrepancies in branch accounts which were not due to the postmasters themselves.

Since the drama aired, Fujitsu has faced calls to compensate subpostmasters at the Metropolitan police has confirmed it is investigating two former Fujitsu experts, who were witnesses in the trials, for perjury and perverting the course of justice.

This week BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT reiterated its support for the public enquiry and other investigations and said it had: “renewed our earlier call for a review of how computer-generated evidence is treated by the courts.

“We have also pledged to take any appropriate action under our Code of Conduct once these cases conclude and report.”

Group chief executive Rashik Parmar said: “The Post Office Horizon IT scandal has highlighted the vital importance of independent standards of professionalism and ethics in the application, development and deployment of technology.

“With so many lives devastated, the transparency provided by a public statutory enquiry is essential to justice and to retaining trust in IT as a great force for good.

“BCS and other professional bodies should look to adopt and support any relevant recommendations once the enquiry and criminal investigations conclude.

“For us, that will include taking any appropriate action under our stringent Code of Conduct, which holds members accountable for their professional behaviour.”

Dr Sam De Silva, chairman of BCS’ law specialist group and technology partner at law firm CMS added: “As the professional body for IT, BCS has long called for a review of how computer-generated evidence is treated by the courts.

“Organisations relying on evidence generated from computer systems to support prosecutions should be required to prove that the underlying computer system is reliable; we hope this will be a clear recommendation from the enquiry.”

Pictured: Promotional shot for Mr Bates vs the Post Office – ITV

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