A sub-postmaster made well-known for being portrayed within the ITV Publish Workplace drama is taking the state-owned physique and Fujitsu to courtroom.
Lee Castleton has turn into the primary particular person former sub-postmaster to launch Excessive Courtroom motion towards the Publish Workplace and the maker of the Horizon defective pc software program.
It was the Horizon accounting software program created by Fujitsu that wrongly generated monetary shortfalls, making it seem that Mr Castleton owed the Publish Workplace cash.
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Mr Castleton wrongfully had a judgment issued towards him in 2007 for taking £25,000.
He’s bringing the problem towards the organisations after it emerged Fujitsu withheld its error log in the course of the prosecution.
Had it been included it could have been clear Horizon contained bugs, errors and defects.
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Mr Castleton spoke to Sky Information about proof heard on the inquiry in January 2024.
This failure to reveal means the judgment towards him was obtained by fraud, he’ll argue.
“We also believe the judgement was obtained by fraud in that the Post Office and Fujitsu knew perfectly well that the Horizon system wasn’t working properly,” his solicitor Simon Goldberg mentioned.
The Publish Workplace and Fujitsu maintained there have been no errors with Horizon till 2019.
Whereas prosecutions towards sub-postmasters have been overturned en masse by means of one-off laws, the civil judgment towards Mr Castleton was not captured by the regulation and nonetheless stands.
Uncovered fraud
The revelation that data was withheld from Mr Castleton throughout his trial got here out in the course of the public inquiry into the Publish Workplace Horizon scandal.
The inquiry was established to create a transparent account of the implementation and failure of the Fujitsu-created software program.
As a part of the scandal, greater than 700 sub-postmasters have been prosecuted for theft and false accounting.
Many extra, like Mr Castleton, have been declared bankrupt as they struggled to plug the imagined shortfalls.
The judgment additionally destroyed his enterprise, livelihood, and status in his neighborhood.
It had a devastating long-term impression on his and his household’s well being.
He was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) within the New Yr’s honours record.
The Publish Workplace and Fujitsu have been contacted for remark.
