The government has enlisted specialist investigators to look into whether a Post Office software application used in the 1990s, called Capture, may have wrongly led to the prosecution of subpostmasters before the Horizon system was introduced.
Capture was a PC-based application developed by the Post Office and used by subpostmasters to manage their accounts. Unlike the networked Horizon system, Capture was a standalone software described by some users as a “glorified spreadsheet”.
Following reports from subpostmasters who claim they were prosecuted due to unexplained shortfalls when using Capture, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has hired Kroll, a forensic investigations firm, to assess if any issues with the system caused harm to postmasters.
In a letter to potentially affected subpostmasters, Carl Cresswell of DBT announced the appointment of Kroll and stated that they are confident in Kroll’s ability to conduct a thorough investigation on the matter.
Former subpostmaster Steve Marston, who experienced issues with Capture resulting in his conviction for theft and false accounting, expressed optimism about the investigation and hopes for justice for all affected victims.
While the government has addressed the Horizon scandal by passing legislation to quash convictions of wrongly prosecuted subpostmasters, victims of the Capture software have been excluded from the response. More than 1,000 subpostmasters may have used Capture, and reports of software faults were documented in newsletters for subpostmasters back in 1995.
The Post Office has stated that they are taking allegations of prosecutions related to Capture seriously and are investigating the issue, including whether software faults could have caused financial discrepancies for subpostmasters.
The Horizon scandal, first exposed in 2009 by Computer Weekly, has brought to light the challenges faced by subpostmasters due to faulty accounting software.