- Horizon was a badly procured and atrociously implemented IT disaster
- The Post Office scandal left hundreds of innocent people criminalised while Paula Vennells was chief
- Tory MP Julian Lewis described the affair in parliament as one of the worst disasters there has been in public life since the infected blood scandal
By Nick Wallis [Author of The Great Post Office Scandal]
Daily Mail Online — 15 November 2021
One of the most frustrating elements of the Post Office’s Horizon computer scandal was the institutional inertia around it. Down the years, dozens of people, organisations and bodies knew something very serious was going wrong, because they were told it was. Yet they stayed silent for years on end.
It was not until last year that enough details had come to light for the Conservative MP Julian Lewis to describe the affair in parliament as one of the worst disasters there has been in public life since the infected blood scandal.
Government was partly to blame. It had pressed the Post Office to make more money by expanding its reach as a financial services provider — selling insurance, mortgages, issuing credit cards and installing cash machines. To succeed at this, every single link of the Horizon IT chain had to be seen as bullet-proof. The pressure was on not to admit to any flaws in the system. No alarm bells were ringing, no questions were pursued with any rigour. No one rocked the boat ...