A former subpostmaster who suffered at the hands of the Post Office’s faulty Capture accounting software has said the announced compensation scheme “discriminates” against claimants.
The scheme is offering initial redress payments of £10,000, with final award bands up to £300,000, to subpostmasters who suffered as a result of the Capture software’s flaws, with “exceptional cases” receiving payments above the upper limit.
The scheme, unlike the Post Office Horizon redress schemes, only allows one appeal.
Former subpostmaster Lee Bowerman, who lost his business as a result of shortfalls experienced while using Capture, accused the government of discriminating against Capture users compared with those who suffered at the hands of the Horizon system. “Where did they get the figure of £300,000 from? It doesn’t even scratch the surface of my losses,” he said.
“Also, we get one appeal, which is unfair – you can’t deny opportunities for further opportunities to challenge offers because it has been proven with the Horizon schemes that those who appealed got increased payments.”
Steve Marston, who attended a meeting with Post Office minister Blair McDougall along with Bowerman and other former subpostmasters, said “the announcement went down like a lead balloon”.
He asked: “What are exceptional circumstances? The government should make this clear.”
Department of Business and Trade
Computer Weekly asked the Department of Business and Trade what the exceptional circumstances were, and the spokesperson said the department would get back to us.
Marston was convicted of financial crime in 1997 as a result of an unexplained shortfall in his branch in Bury, Lancashire.
He was prosecuted for theft and false accounting, following an unexplained shortfall of nearly £80,000. Marston said he had never had any problems using the paper-based accounting system, but that changed when his branch, which he ran from 1973, began using the Capture system.
The Criminal Courts Review Commission (CCRC) is currently reviewing his appeal against the conviction, along with about 30 other Capture-based cases. The compensation scheme is not open to those with criminal convictions, but they can appeal against convictions through the CCRC.
The Capture redress scheme will be tested on 150 claimants before being fully rolled out to all those that were affected. The government believes there will be up to 1,500 claims.
Many Capture users suffered in the same way as users of Horizon, the software that followed.
Unfair appeal rule
Marston and Bowerman both criticised the rule that subpostmasters can only appeal once. Claimants to Horizon schemes have had the opportunity to appeal multiple times, and in many cases, redress payments increased significantly after multiple appeals.
Jo Hamilton, who was wrongly convicted as a result of shortfalls caused by the Horizon system, said: “Here we go again, the government trying to minimise the payments. Capture victims are the same as Horizon victims. They lost businesses and homes just like us and suffered in the same way; the government should treat them the same way when it comes to redress.”
The controversy over the Capture system emerged in January 2024, after ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office told the stories of subpostmasters who had suffered at the hands of the Horizon system. It was the same month that Kevan Jones, an MP at the time who now sits in the House of Lords, highlighted evidence of injustices triggered by Capture losses.
While Horizon, which was introduced in 2000, was a large enterprise system used by all subpostmasters, Capture was floppy disk-based and used by a couple of thousand people in the mid-1990s.
But those who experienced unexplained shortfalls on the two different systems were treated the same way. They were made responsible for shortfalls and had to make them good. People were made bankrupt, and some were prosecuted and jailed.
‘Reasonable likelihood’
In September 2024, an independent investigation by forensic experts at Kroll found there was a “reasonable likelihood” the Post Office Capture software had caused accounting losses. But despite this, Capture users are not permitted to join existing compensation schemes aimed at Horizon victims, which in some cases have no limits on what can be paid out.
According to the latest government figures, the Horizon redress schemes have paid out over £1.2bn to more than 9,000 victims.
McDougall said: “After over two decades of fighting for justice, postmasters and their families will finally receive recognition and recompense for the lives and livelihoods that Capture destroyed.”
He thanked victims who helped design the scheme, but Marston said nobody was shown the application form for redress before the scheme’s launch. “They produced an application form without actually consulting any of the victims themselves … I don’t think that’s very democratic or fair,” he said.
But both Marston and Bowerman said they were not properly consulted. Bowerman said “this came out of the blue for us”.
Computer Weekly first exposed the Post Office scandal in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to Horizon accounting software.
Last week, the Post Office was handed a £2m contract to search its own records for information to identify Capture users and find evidence of unexplained shortfalls.
Read: Everything you need to know about the Post Office scandal.
