The UK post office scandal of wrongful convictions began 14 years ago

ANDREW BRIDGEN, Member of Parliament for North West Leicestershire, reveals the back story of this serial miscarriage of justice. “In 2010, as a newly elected MP, nothing prepared me for a constituency surgery appointment with Michael and Susan Rudkin, a couple who gave me their account of how they had been treated by the Post Office.”  

It was not until the public inquiry into one of the country’s worst miscarriages of justice began a year ago that I finally got a chance on GB News to detail the suffering of thousands of sub-postmasters and mistresses like my constituents which I have been pursuing for nearly 14 years.

Andrew Bridgen

In 2014, a bombshell landed on the ‘watertight’ Horizon system when a Fujitsu whistleblower disclosed to the forensic accountants that, while sorting bugs and problems in the Horizon system, the firm hadsecretly and remotely altered data in individual sub-postmasters’ computers. It showed that remote data manipulation in individual branches was possible and was happening without leaving a record. The revelation blew a hole in the Post Office’s prosecution cases and made thousands of criminal convictions of sub-postmasters (many of whom were by now imprisoned) potentially unsafe. But because the information discovered by Second Sight was being given – or as the Post Office characterised it, ‘leaked’ – to me and then to the sub-postmasters, the Post Office threatened Second Sight with legal action for ‘breach of contract’.

‘nothing was done’

By 2014 I had clear evidence that the criminal convictions of the sub- postmasters for fraud were ‘unsafe’. The Post Office and the Government were made fully aware of this. Yet, shockingly, nothing was done to rectify the clear and huge miscarriage of justice.

I spoke to all the major media outlets. I briefed journalists at the BBC, Sky News, Channel 4 and ITV as well as all the national newspapers that I had all the proof that the Horizon scandal was the biggest miscarriage of justice in UK history. Journalists were keen and excited, but none were allowed by their editors or executives above them to run the story.

Full story HERE

Our report HERE

This entry was posted in General articles. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to The UK post office scandal of wrongful convictions began 14 years ago

  1. Jerry Fitzsimmons says:

    Couldn’t agree more with your words ‘moni’.
    I would have to say we are only just beginning to hear and see the extent of this, the greatest ever miscarriage of justice in a supposedly civilised democracy that occurred in the UK. The current public inquiry being held in the UK will hopefully expose a Horizon computer system stemming back to Prime Minister John Major government, then carried through to the Tony Blair government who fobbed it of to the UK Post Office under the leadership of CEO Adam Crozier who after eight years of this Horizon/Fujitsu computer system and errors then handed it on in 2010 to CEO Paula Vennells who we all see on the television documentary as being one of the biggest culprits of this scandal. Not Major, not Blair, not Crozier but Vennells, another WOMAN in leadership ( remember Julia Gillard, remember Christine Holgate, remember Kimberley Kitching) and yes of course, the ‘boys club’ remain squeaky clean-thus far! Crozier then went on to become CEO of ITV, one of the television channels that MP Andrew Brigden approached to expose what his constituents were telling him about Horizon but to no avail.
    So because the ITV documentary does not expose the ‘boys club’ as yet I feel we may have more to hear and see from the screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes whose exposure of the Post Office scandal showed how incompetent and ineffectual the bureaucrats had been and of course those who may have been may no longer be bureaucrats!
    This is the ‘democracy’ we have all come to distrust and unfortunately when we do attempt to expose undemocratic wrongdoings we automatically think of how people, ordinary citizens like Julian Assange, Dan Duggan, Alexei Navalny to name but a few, have all been treated for ‘rocking the boat’.
    As ‘moni’ wrote “ Thanks for all you [and your team] do Andrew!”.

  2. Owen Allen says:

    In these cases their are gut feelings, or thoughts of common sense.
    And the media show footage obtained some how which never appears in court that I know of, and youtube shows film evidence of crimes committed which disappears after sometime, never used in court or pushed by the media.
    This is my opinion; for instance photographs of Chopper Read and Ivan Milat gunned up wearing ammunition belts like bandidos. Chopper Read proved his passion, non smoking Milat may have had an accomplice or allowed victims to smoke during torture sessions.
    The nationally recognised swimming coach accused of molestation, who left instructions for the kids on the white board. It was said, how could he coach the kids swimming and disappear to molest a young girl swimmer. Because he had the white board. It was never brought up to my knowledge but the white board was shown on tv during swimming training.
    Corby, camera surveillance with audio showed Corby attempting to prevent the customs from opening the zip, she says, “don’t look in there”, I never heard that brought up.
    Port Arthur massacre. A witness has stated the shooter in the cafe had a pock marked face. Martin Bryant had clear skin. I watched but never saved the shooter wearing the blonde wig outside the cafe. Also for some time later a youtube of Martin bryant at Seascape on the phone to police, and shots were being fired from Seascape at the same time, Bryant wasn’t alone. He was saying, ” you going to get the main man”, in my opinion Bryant was a patsy playing a game set up by Tavistock ( mind manipulating proffessionals). I met Andrew McGregor and new Wendy and Graeme Scurr. I met political party personel who said they like police who are thugs. Yep, true.

  3. moni says:

    Andrew Brigden is one of the few politicians in the UK of any substance. He is a hero and has been crucified by his peers of the Conservative Party until his expulsion in April 2023, having had the whip suspended in January after criticising the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and claiming that an Israeli cardiologist told him it constitutes “the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust”.

    I look forward to seeing many convictions of those who covered up this matter in the future…but somehow I doubt it. There just never seems to be any justice when there has been a verifiable miscarriage of justice. No one is held accountable, lawyers, police, judges, the media all seem to be in on the “protection racket” with one another. It is really quite disheartening.

    And this week we await the news for Julian Assange and now we have another suffering a similar fate to Julian, here in Australia – Dan Duggan https://freedanduggan.org/

    Thank you Andrew for all you do!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.