INQUIRY FOUND 13 LIVES LIKELY LOST DUE TO HORIZON SCANDAL

At least 59 wrongly accused subpostmasters say they contemplated suicide

- By Jonathan Walker and Steph Spyro

IT is a “real possibility” that 13 people took their own lives due to the “harrowing” impact of the Post Office Horizon scandal, an official inquiry has found.

And dozens of staff contemplated following the same course after being falsely accused and convicted of theft.

Bankruptcy, divorce and vitriolic abuse from the public were among other “disastrous” repercussions laid bare in a long-awaited report.

Retired judge Sir Wyn Williams said at least 59 people “contemplated suicide at various points in time” and attributed this “to their experiences with Horizon and/or the Post Office”.

Former subpostmaster Jo Hamilton, who was wrongly prosecuted over a shortfall of £36,000 at her Hampshire branch in 2006, said the report “shows the full scale of the horror” unleashed on innocent employees.

There were demands for Post Office bosses to be hauled before Parliament to explain why they “misled” MPs.

Managers should have known the Horizon accounting system was faulty but “maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate” when prosecuting subpostmasters, said Sir Wyn.

A number of Post Office personnel were also aware an updated system called Horizon Online had bugs and defects, he said.