The past year has been another merciless one in terms of developments in Horizon Post Office scandal.
If 2024 was the fallout from the ITV drama surrounding the scandal, then 2025 was the year that saw more people delve deeper into the scandal.
While the public inquiry into the scandal continued in the background and analyzed evidence collected over three years, many important developments occurred.
The first investigative report in July was a defining moment. Although it covered only part of the investigation, with a more comprehensive report to come, it revealed a devastating link between people who took their own lives and their treatment at the hands of the Post Office.
Fujitsu has attracted significant attention this year for its role in the scandal, and former post office bosses affected by the second Post Office system, known as Capture, have made great strides in their own campaign for justice.
In July, the head of the public inquiry into the Post Office scandal said he could not rule out 'real possibility' that 13 people committed suicide as a result of their treatment at the post office after they faced unexplained shortages in their branches.
In the first part of his long-awaited report, retired judge Wyn Williams presented the findings of the first stage of the public inquiry, which examined the human impact of the scandal. He also reported on the progress of compensation schemes being implemented by the government and the post office.
Williams said: “The picture that has emerged and is described in my report is deeply troubling.”
A senior Fujitsu executive told colleagues the first Public inquiry report into Horizon post office scandal 'not so bad'despite problems with IT supplier software being linked to 13 suicides.
During the meeting, in which he said he was speaking “candidly”, a member of the company's senior management, who has since left Fujitsu, also told employees that the supplier could bypass the voluntary pause in public sector tenders by working as a subcontractor, with other suppliers bidding.
His recorded remarks about the investigation's devastating findings contradicted Fujitsu's apologetic statements.
In February we reported that Fujitsu could receive more than half a billion pounds in contracts from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) just this year as the UK public sector continued to reward the supplier despite its role in the Post Office scandal.
HMRC is Fujitsu's largest source of government revenue in the UK, but there are still hundreds of millions of pounds worth of public sector contracts that Fujitsu has already won or is bidding for.
The huge numbers come despite Fujitsu's voluntary pause in bidding for government contracts and its continued refusal to fully contribute to undoing some of the damage it has caused.
In August we reported that the nationwide police investigation into the Post Office scandal had hit a snag. Conflict of Interest Questions regarding Fujitsu's role in managing the network used by individual police forces to share information.
Per James Arbuthnot called the contract very concerning and expressed doubt that the government was “not happy with Fujitsu”.
The government renewed Fujitsu's Law Enforcement Enforcement Network (LECN) contract in November 2024 in a deal worth £15 million, despite the supplier being investigated as part of the investigation into the Post Office scandal. There is a potential conflict of interest in that the network is supporting a major police operation conducted by a company whose former employees and actions are under investigation.
In June we reported that the police were investigation of 45 people in connection with potential crimes in the postal scandalwith seven people still officially identified as suspects.
The national police investigation, known as Operation Olympos, was announced last year by the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC), which is leading the effort along with the Metropolitan Police.
Initially, a team of 100 officers from across the country needed to check 1.5 million documents, and after the initial investigation this figure reached six million. According to the NPCC, the number of documents and suspects is expected to increase.
Former Post Office general counsel Jane MacLeod, who avoided questioning during the statutory public inquiry into the Post Office scandal, will not escape police investigationdespite living abroad.
According to one source, during a meeting at which victims were informed about the Operation Olympos investigation into the scandal, police officials were asked whether those abroad could be questioned. Those present at the updated meeting were told they could, and, unprompted, a member of the investigation team cited the former head of the legal department as an example.
This year took place The Post Office issued its first official apology. subpostmasters who used faulty Capture accounting software and were blamed and punished for unexplained deficiencies.
Ken Tooby received a letter from a senior manager who “sincerely and unreservedly apologised” on behalf of the Post Office for the “failures and impact” on Tooby's late wife, June, who had been challenging the Post Office for years over alleged shortcomings in accounts at its branch in the north-east of England.
June Tooby, who died in 2020, was relentlessly harassed by the Post Office and never told her husband how much pressure she was under.
Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) officially submitted the first appeal against the verdict Post Office Capture user to the Court of Appeal this year.
The appeal concerns the case of Patricia Owen, who died in 2003. She pleaded not guilty to stealing £6,000 but was found guilty in 1998 and sentenced to six months' imprisonment, suspended for two years, at Canterbury Crown Court.
In July it emerged that the CCRC had decided to refer Owen's case to appeal, but did not do so until 15 October.
Later this year the Criminal Cases Review Commission issued a conviction based on the IT system of the third post office cassation.
The appeal from former deputy postmaster Gareth Snow, who ran the Denbighshire branch, has the potential to further deepen the post office scandal. Snow used the Post Office's Automatic Payment Service (APS) and Automatic Payment Terminal (APT) when his branch began to experience a shortfall that eventually reached almost £60,000.
Snow admitted that he falsified reporting, but said that was because errors caused by the APT led to reporting shortages.
Post office decision to use commercial off-the-shelf electronic point of sale (Epos) Horizon's system of replacing problematic software led to the organization turning around after 30 years.
The announcement in May that the Post Office was seeking a turnkey Epos system under a £169 million contract revealed a huge error in judgment in 1996.
Back then, when the branch automation project was signed off, non-technical post office managers rejected calls to use an off-the-shelf Epos system – a decision that led to the development and implementation of the Horizon system at the center of the postal scandal.
