After 25 years, Post Office finally issues first apology to a Capture victim ...Middle East

The Post Office has issued a landmark apology over a second IT scandal dating back more than 30 years that was first exposed in The i Paper.

In a letter to the widower of a former sub-postmistress who spent decades battling the Post Office over money that auditors claimed was missing from her branch in the North East, the Post Office admitted for the first time there were “significant failings” in Capture, a piece of software rolled out in the 1990s.

Simon Recaldin, director of the Remediation Unit at the Post Office, told Ken Tooby, the widower of June Tooby: “I am writing to apologise sincerely and unreservedly to you, on behalf of the company and myself.

“It is clear through the efforts of former Postmasters and their families that there were significant failings at the Post Office relating to Capture.”

Mrs Tooby was sued for more than £55,000 plus interest by the Post Office in 2003 despite the fact she had already been sacked and was struggling financially.

She died in 2020 aged 71 but it is thanks to a raft of documents she kept in her loft that Capture campaigners have been able to expose the scandal.

The system was used by at least 2,500 sub-postmasters between 1992 and 1999, but was prone to bugs and glitches which caused accounting shortfalls.

And in a precursor to the Horizon scandal, sub-postmasters were forced to hand over money, sacked, and in some cases criminally prosecuted.

At least 27 convictions are currently being considered by the miscarriages of justice watchdog while the government is in the process of setting up a new compensation scheme for payouts.

Mr Recaldin’s letter went on: “We are truly sorry for these failings and their impact on all concerned, including your late wife June.

“We deeply regret that June was not able to receive this apology herself, see these issues recognised alongside the Horizon scandal, denied the opportunity to see the truth uncovered, for justice to prevail and see her good name restored.”

Mr Tooby has been invited to receive an apology in person from the Post Office, if he wishes.

Speaking to The i Paper, Mr Tooby and his niece Vivian said the apology means “the world” to them.

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“It’s the exoneration that we wanted,” he said.

“It will bring me a bit of peace of mind. We’ve come a long way from last year when no one knew anything about Capture.”

He added that he believes the apology is “sincere” and he hopes it will now help those who have criminal convictions to have them overturned.

The apology also raises fresh questions about who knew what and when during the Capture scandal.

In the letter, Mr Recaldin points to an independent investigation carried out by US firm Kroll into Capture which heard evidence that knowledge of bugs in the system were “not formally shared between Post Office control functions (e.g. IT and audit functions) and it appears they may not have been considered as a possible contributing factor to shortfalls, for which Postmasters were then pursued by Post Office.”

However, this would appear to be contradicted by some of the evidence retained by Mrs Tooby which suggests Capture problems were discussed by Post Office IT bosses and its legal team.

Capture was developed in-house by the Post Office and Mrs Tooby kept a bulletin sent to staff by the IT team from March 1996 in which sub-postmasters were advised to continue keeping “manual” records as well as using the computer system.

The bulletin says this followed “advice from the Post Office Solicitor’s Office that current automated systems are unable to provide a clear audit trail for transactions or for cash and stock holdings entered at any specific time.”

Mrs Tooby always believed faults with Capture could have played a role in the accounting problems at her branch.

A transcript of court proceedings from her civil case in 2003 reveals this assertion was denied under oath by a Post Office investigator.

Sub-postmasters met with the government last week to discuss the development of compensation schemes for those affected by Capture shortfalls.

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson said: “Officials met with postmasters today as part of the Government’s commitment to develop an effective and fair redress process that takes into account the circumstances of those affected by Capture.

“Ensuring postmasters are treated with dignity and respect is our absolute priority and we will continue to update on the development of the redress mechanism as it progresses.”

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