A documentary which featured a whistleblower from an IT company based in Bracknell exposed problems with Post Office accounting years before the recent inquiry dug into the issue.
Senior figures at the Post Office and the Fujitsu IT company, which is based in Lovelace Road, Bracknell, have both come under fire recently over accounting issues that led to self-employed post office shop owners being prosecuted.
It has emerged that hundreds of these shop owners were wrongly prosecuted for stealing and fraud, which appeared due to issues with Fujitsu’s Horizon accounting system.
The scandal has received attention over recent months thanks to phased public inquiry hearings and the ITV documentary series Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which aired this year showing the plight of shop owners.
But issues with the Horizon IT system were exposed years ago in the BBC Panorama documentary Trouble at the Post Office which aired in August 2015.
In the documentary, BBC journalist John Sweeney spoke with whistleblower Richard Roll, who had worked at Fujitsu as a computer technician from 2001 to 2004.
Mr Roll said: “The office was located in Bracknell.
“We were on the sixth floor which was pretty secure. By the time we got in there it was like Fort Knox.
“There was a large team employed there, 30 or so of us, we were all full-time, and we were all pretty busy.
“So there were a lot of errors, a lot of glitches coming through.”
Mr Sweeney asked: “Some people have been ruined financially, people have gone to prison.
“Is it possible that suffering could have been caused because there were problems with the Horizon system?”
Mr Roll replied: “Yes it is possible.”
The interview was conducted at a garden centre tea room in Shrewsbury, with footage from the Fujitsu UK headquarters in Lovelace Road used as establishing shots.
A petition launched by Bracknell resident Mark John has called for those responsible to be punished or for Fujitsu to leave the town.
So far, 152 people have signed the petition on Change.org.
READ MORE: Petition calls for Fujitsu to leave Bracknell amid Post Office IT scandal
In other developments, Paula Vennells the chief executive officer of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019 has said she will hand back the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) title she was granted in the New Year Honours list of 2019.
A petition calling on Mrs Vennells to hand back her CBE on the website 38 Degrees after receiving 1.23 million (1,230,493) signatures.
A follow-up documentary by BBC Panorama called Scandal at the Post Office was aired in 2020.
READ MORE: Bracknell MP calls Post Office IT scandal worst miscarriage of justice in UK history
A spokesperson for Fujitsu said: “The current Post Office Horizon IT statutory Inquiry is examining complex events stretching back over 20 years to understand who knew what, when, and what they did with that knowledge.
“The Inquiry has reinforced the devastating impact on postmasters’ lives and that of their families, and Fujitsu has apologised for its role in their suffering.
“Fujitsu is fully committed to supporting the Inquiry in order to understand what happened and to learn from it.
“Out of respect for the Inquiry process, it would be inappropriate for Fujitsu to comment further at this time.”
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