Post Office scandal: Fujitsu says it has ‘moral obligation’ to compensate victims 

You would have to do a lot better than "Sorry" if you put me unlawfully in prison...

Been forced into a apology after years a scandal is not apology it is deceit people are dead and have been in prison this goes all the way to the door of government..

What he is really saying is he is so very sorry they got caught.

As a Japan resident, I can tell you that there are already apologists out there desperately trying to exonerate and make excuses for Fujitsu. The Government need to take a leaf out of the Japanese Government playbook and that is to not only make them pay compensation, but put a 6 month, 1 or 2 years operating ban (i.e., they can't conduct business or even take phone calls). This isn't Fujitsu's first cockup and they have done it in the UK before and they have also made a mess of the Japanese 'My Number' personal card that is necessary for tax returns, will also be our new health card and eventually our driver's license all rolled into one card. This is a company that needs slapping down but unless it reverberates in Japan too, any punishment is going to be pointless.

The way Mr. Patterson responded with such honesty compared to the head of The Post Office is like night and day.

There must now be prosecutions of Post Office and Fujitsu personnel involved in the wrongful prosecution of innocent people.

They made the postmasters pay back money that wasnt missing out of their own pockets and imprisoned them when they couldnt. It stands to reason that the execs and bosses who recieved bonuses during this time should pay those bonuses back into the scheme. And if they dont have the money they should serve time.

Sadly today this is a crime and those at the top should go to prison , there were bullying and untruths , but look at other issues today at post office the same way to be treated badly

how are they gonna compensate, the loss of life and lively hood, how are they gonna compensate prison time that was served, fujitsu need to be fined hundreds of millions and post office officials who knew need prison and fines, and those poor victims AND the immediate family of those of lost loved ones, need compensation in the hundreds of thousands. only true way to fix this wrong, and remove the postal service of its authority to prosecute as it has clearly established it does not follow the basic minimum requirement of law to uphold the law they were granted to enforce.

These victims should be awarded *millions* for the pain and suffering they endured on top of everything they lost out of pocket fighting this injustice. Compensation should be in the millions. Each victim & their families deserve it. People took their own lives on the back of this horrendous injustice. There’s something deeply rotten at the core of a society that permits a scandal like this & adds insult to injury by making it so difficult for those wronged to be made whole. In the US these victims would see tens of millions each.

There must be a criminal prosecution of the Post Office and Fujitsu this include perjury under the Perjury Act 1911.

Fujitsu surely should foot the bill for the compensation payouts

Your apologies (fujitsu uk) are too little, too late and forced. you have more than a moral obligation - You are criminally liable. The same is true of POL then and now

If the taxpayer has to foot the bill, then it is yet again the little person who is suffering. Why my tax contributions have to go and pay for the bonuses these scumbags took from stealing from innocent people is beyond me. The taxpayers should not be paying a penny. The money needs to come out of Fujitsu and the Post office who made false profits for decades. I don’t care if it bankrupts them, justice needs to be served.

There needs to be accountability. The Post Office is yet another failed service that's put profit before people. The people affected deserve all the help, support and care that can be found. We now have service failures, lost or undelivered mail and when people get fined for non payment of car tax etc, there's no compensation for third party losses. This is wrong too. It would be helpful if our personal mail was delivered rather than endless junk mail delivered all the time.

Fujitsu are only apologising now because they've been caught out. They've known about it for 20 years, yet allowed people to have prison sentences and lose their homes. They were happy to watch lives being ruined rather than own up. Evil beyond evil. They owe an awful lot more than an apology. Any apology forced on them 20 years too late could never be a sincere one.

A TV drama on mail fraud sounds boring until you found out how destructive this scheme really was

Some of these people (certainly those that were involved at the time) should be prosecuted and jailed. The software was wrong when it was claimed to be fine. These people told lies and must have extensively produced a string of false statements. It goes to the top. Interim payments should be immediately....used as a tactic to reduce payments.

Someone from Fujitsu will need to go to jail and loose all government contracts.

No amount of money can compensate for losing the life you should have had

Words are cheap. We've heard so many people in power, once they have been found out, apologise in the last few years. Look contrite and say "I'm sorry😞". It's time for real consequences and penalise these people. But don't hold your breath because it's never going to happen in the UK

This coincided exactly at the same time Fujitsu staff started giving evidence at the public enquiry today. Whoever is Fujitsu's PR team they are doing very well.

The families of those who took their lives and those who died before anything could be resolved, should see if they can still be compensated and have their good name restored. Post Office and Fujitsu should compensate all affected fully and not a penny less.

How hard can it be!find all the executives bonuses going back to 2015 and get it back. Just like if I don't pay my credit card - they take my tv.

Either Post Office execs knew or now know monies extorted from sub-postmasters went into bonuses or the money was diverted and it didn't end up in their bonuses which would raise the question where the money went. Good luck in court.

Of course the stolen monies were put into the PROFIT/loss accounts thus making it look like there was more profit on which to base bonuses. Those in the post office who knew what was going on should return those bonuses. The post office managers whose money was stolen should have that returned immediately while they work on a compensation package.

At least we are getting some honest answer's and disclosure.

There needs to prison sentences

That moral obligation probably equates to less than 1% of revenue from contract with the post office and assures them of ongoing contracts with the government

Take the post office back into public ownership without payment. Pay all the victims. Let the shareholders sue those responsible and take these CEOs, etc, into bankruptcy.

So many people have responsibility for this. The company should pay each person affected - generously.

Why is the British taxpayer compensating those victims of the Post Office scandal??? Surely it should be the Post Office who should be paying out, as it was the PO who were prosecuting these innocent people because of the failures in the PO IT system ????

The Bates V Post Office case was determined in March 2019. Why has it taken the Government and the Post Office nearly 5 years to compensate these people? A significant number have still not received full compensation.

Nice to see some belated honesty..not sure his company will be too happy..pay the compensation now..people have been waiting way too long.

🦉🐯 They got caught, now they are just trying to avoid jail. They should be on trial for the crimes that they committed against innocent people! Or am I missing something?

They must go to prison no excuse

Fujitsu is so immersed in the military industrial scientific academic bank con that they probably have their own currency printing press

If this guys walks free with his multi-million pension intact, ... would be total breakdown of the rule of law.

Knowingly giving false evidence is fujitsu perverting the course of justice and contempt of court, on every single court case they brought.

All the companies and individuals in this scandal should be charged with anything and everything they can be charged with then forced to pay compensation to the injured and then jailed

no money from British taxpayers for this

Go on Joe!

A "moral obligation" but they make no mention of any _legal_ obligation. Vile, vile people.

Surely, if there are people who are found criminally liable and if they have profited from this and knew that these prosecutions were pursued illegally that they should pay all the money they earned back and be fined as well - even if they lose their houses/boats/cars etc. I don't think anyone will shed a tear.

Bus drivers wages have been docked daily for yrs even tho in most cases there’s no actual loss of revenue.

The compensation for the SPM’s even at 1 Million each is still small change for a global company like Fujitsu, who have many other lucrative contracts in the Uk. It’s called covering your a***.

The only thing these guys are "truly sorry" for is getting caught out and what the consequences are for them.

"I do think there is a moral obligation (on Fujitsu) to compensate the victims." But let's see just how much you can get out of us in a court of law when our top drawer lawyers get involved..

Fujitsu should be responsible for a huge compensation package, tax-free to all the postal workers immediately. The government are up to their ears in this mess. MORALS NOT MONEY STOP THE TORIES STOP THE LIES STOP MONES BOAT

Prosecute the people at the top responsible and £100 million compensation fund from Royal Mail and Fujitsu. End of discussion.

Jail!!

I’m not disputing any of the shocking evidence that the Post Office Enquiry has revealed but there a question that I’ve never found an answer for….perhaps I’ve missed it??? What was the motive of Fujitsu employees in accessing and altering sub postmaster’s accounts? It doesn’t appear that it was just BEDs but that employees were able to remotely live access SPM’s accounts and change them - and did so …..but WHY??? The employees weren’t able to syphon off the money for themselves or Fujitsu, so WHY did they do it?

More than a moral obligation to pay compensation!

This was first exposed back in 2011, but Tory did nothing, they prefer listen to company boss, rather than listening ordinary people who affected the most.

Sorry doesn’t cut it. What would he do in the same position as the postmasters that were prosecuted. How would he have handled the accusations ?.

How many post office kind of clients does Fujitsu has in the world? What about Australia? New Zealand? Canada? Are there any ‘sub-postmaster’ kind of franchisees suffering? How many deaths in the world? How many bankruptcies and how many wrongful convictions and jailed. How many children in the world are suffering from bullying or discrimination? This scandal, in my view, well beyond UK. I hope I’m wrong.

They should go to jail for at least one month to experience a small percentage of prison life! What kind of judge also didn’t see through an honest person and did not even ask for evidence on the innocently sentenced. 😡

Words are cheap,Nick Read as a boss is shameful,he constantly makes excuses and doesnt know how the business works.

Fujitsu now must pay full compensation of the money lost by innocent SPMs plus at least £1 million for each SPM. The post office must be totally scrapped and a new proper post office started. None of the previous post office or Fujitsu corporate managers to ever be employed by the new post office. Speed up the process! It’s taken 20 years!!!!!! What kind of evil government do we have in the U.K.? Horribly evil….

This is about control. The Post Office is determined not to surrender its position as judge and jury in its own case - ie never in a month of Sundays.

If it wants to keep it's other government contracts

Fujitsu was supportingThe Post Office's prosecutions even though they both knew that there was bugs in the Horizon program; this has come to light these dats from evidence from internal Memos at Fujitsu programmers warning that the Horizon system was not yet ready for the roll-out.

I imagine an apology isn't going to cut it at this stage. Financial reparations and criminal charges are the only proper apology.

Oh the irony of politicians complaining of frustration at questions not being answered!!

This is how rubbish the journalism is the UK…all over it like a rash because it’s suddenly a television programme…but absolutely nothing fee the previous years when genuine people were being shafted…pathetic.

Fujitsu should be charged with knowingly providing false evidence in a court of law. 3:27 when executives try to give answers that don’t admit liability.

Apologies do not cut it….get your cheque books out….and NOW.

Did the PO and Fujitsu do all this on purpose, just to top up their own bonuses?

Somebody needs to go to jail for decades long wreckless perversion of the course of justice.

Just saying sorry is not enough. Fujitsu is also having trouble with the national number card in Japan.

Will the Education Secretary push for her husband, the former Fujitsu Ceo, to face the music?

So it’s 3 months since the “apology “ and what has Fujitsu done since then ?? We were involved in this Appalling miscarriage of justice…” any movement on their so claimed moral obligation to compensate victims?? Nothing yet ? At all?? Hmmm

only because sunak told them too, infosys been in partnership with fujitsu since 2002, all this with horizon, also the police computers last year, the emergency test last year, need i go on, sunak only in power to further his father in laws business. oh and a big family investment in BP before a contract for oil gas was passed, they certainly raking it in

They knew what they were doing the whole time. They are not sorry about what they did. They are sorry they got caught.

Sorry to get caught - not sorry it happened. You are sorry for standing on someone's toe or knocking over a vase - you are sorry you got caught when you have to be confronted with the evidence.

Failure of IT, enforcement, judicial system and finance teams which lead to these people surfer for nothing … Shameful !

...you knew from the off-set!! And yet twenty years later you assume by way of apology, the ruined lives of these victims can be just flippantly cast aside, like brushing away dust with your corrupt fingers, have a conversation with your children about it, and see if your mind can fabricate something . .......Furthermore, when asked critical questions regarding the agenda, all of a sudden , everyone gets AMNESIA.... 😂😂😂

The UK Government needs to except that sub postmasters are victims and need protection and the compensation needs to be paid forthwith and in full based on the value of there business and future value plus compensation for court actions and bad press and lies made about them this a large amount but it is fair after all that has happened the subpostmasters should not have to prove this in formation as the lies over time make this unprovable

The normal legal process takes place, PO LTD gets sued, then PO Sues Fujistu .. UK law Directors Culpable ??? dont know lived in the USA for long time now, interesting topic

Here here

I was shocked when i saw just how many contracts they win from the Government, it's billions......

some people took their own lives, many made bankrupt, and families and friends abandoned many due to the stigma of false allegations. For shame. You had better have a very large cheque for each and every postmaster who was touched in any way by this scandal. How pathetic can bureaucrats get.

No!!! We want the Fujitsu bosses to jailed fir 50yrs.

part of being allowed access to the public purse is putting up with occasionally being part of a show trial to appease the public, once over no one is punished and then they all pop off and have a jolly good dinner at the tax payers expense.

Perhaps now repay what the UK government paid over Fujitsu and the NHS.

Incredibly calm and considered lady in response to the baying baiting grandstanding of the journalist …Thompson …she showed her class in the face of the his baiting..class above th embarrassing

The fact that taxpayer is covering compensations....is next scandal in the making.

Lies lies lies!!!!! Money Money only Money We need loudly call the names Pay the people now!!!!

Truly sorry doesn't hack it. Cell time does. Is there a jail big enough to accommodate?

Fujitsu should never get another UK contract, they fucking knew there was faults on the software.

some needs to ask fujitsu how much compo did they pay paula vennals and co as there version of a victims is a bit warped.two decades and the police arrested no one gulty .with a tory connection.

They should pay it all 🤦‍♂️ why punish the citizens again by making us pay ? So they are getting away with it, pure joke

Rather than blaming Fujitsu alone, the higher ups at the UK Post Office, judges and lawyers are more to blame.

Does anyone else think this is the tip of the iceberg? Where else are they doing this? This doesn't sound like a one off.

They cant raise the dead and give back time, so its impossible to compensate.

Fujitsu is worth over 25mill. And all I get is an apology

I'm sorry but when he said "I don't know", what a liar, do we really believe that someone like him would front up at the inquiry without first finding out that crucial bit of information.

I don't think we'll see prison convictions for the top executives

Civil cases to come !

The need a contempt ability in these hearings, do not want to answer have a few nights in jail .