Fujitsu refuses to say how a lot Post Office scandal compensation it can pay | EUROtoday

Fujitsu has refused to say how a lot the corporate pays in the direction of the mammoth £1.8bn compensation invoice for the Post Office scandal, at present being funded by the taxpayer.

A prime government additionally admitted the corporate has thus far set nothing apart to cowl its contribution to these affected by what former prime minister Rishi Sunak described as “one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history”.

Hundreds of subpostmasters have been prosecuted for theft and false accounting due to Fujitsu’s defective laptop system, with some victims despatched to jail or financially ruined.

Those whose convictions have been quashed are eligible for compensation, however MPs on the Commons enterprise and commerce committee heard one subpostmaster had wrongly been informed they didn’t qualify.

Paul Patterson, director at Fujitsu Services Ltd, has beforehand admitted the agency had “clearly let society down” and that there have been “bugs, errors and defects” with its Horizon software program that led to monetary discrepancies that noticed postmasters being wrongfully convicted “right from the very start”.

On Tuesday, he informed MPs that the corporate was dedicated to contributing to the compensation scheme, however that the quantity could be decided solely when the agency had seen the outcomes of the official inquiry at present being held into the scandal.

He mentioned that “we will decide [a figure] when we see the report”.

But he was challenged by Lib Dem MP Charlie Maynard, who informed him: “This whole problem would not have happened without Fujitsu’s failures”.

He requested him to ship a message to Fujitsu’s chair and different executives and ask them to look earlier than the committee to clarify, “if they are not paying £1.8bn in full, why not?”

Mr Patterson was additionally pressed by the chair of the committee, Labour MP Liam Byrne, who mentioned Fujitsu was nonetheless “taking £1m a day from British taxpayers” in numerous authorities contracts.

The committee additionally heard from a former publish workplace supervisor who had not had her conviction overturned, whereas her husband had, regardless of each being prosecuted for a similar crime.

Glenys Eaton informed MPs that she needed to take her case to a judicial assessment.

She mentioned they needed to “employ a barrister to fight our corner. We had to pay £5,000 for his services, but we knew we were in the right and the only way we could get justice was to fight on.” She was informed that her conviction could be quashed “only weeks ago”, she mentioned, regardless of a regulation designed to overturn wrongful convictions from the IT scandal coming into power in May 2024.

Her lawyer, David Enright, a associate at Howe & Co Solicitors, mentioned the agency had fought a “titanic battle” on her behalf. But he warned: “I am certain there are many Mrs Eatons out there.”