Part one of Sir Wyn Williams’ report into the Post Office Horizon scandal has landed. He makes a total of nineteen recommendations, crunches a number of significant figures and as per the headline to this piece, reveals the number of lives lost as a direct result of this scandal.

Dealing with the most significant statistic first, in March this year, Sir Wyn Williams asked the Post Office to tell him how many people they know appear to have taken their own lives “as a consequence of Horizon showing an illusory shortfall in branch accounts”. Williams asked the Post Office for this information as it holds a significant amount of data via the compensation schemes and its own media monitoring.

The Post Office named six former Postmasters and seven other branch assistants or Post Office workers, making a total of thirteen. Sir Wyn Williams has also identified evidence from “at least” 59 others who contemplated suicide with ten of those attempting to do so.

The Inquiry part one report lays out some of the stories of those who have been particularly badly affected by this scandal, many of whom will be known to readers of this blog and my book, including Harjinder Butoy, Tracy Felstead, Siema Kamran and Kamran Ashraf (pictured below), Sami Sabet, Chris Trousdale, Deirdre Connolly, Millie Castleton, Parmod Kalia and the late Martin Griffiths. I am pleased to see one of the most appalling stories – that of Jacqueline McDonald (who was jailed) – has been fleshed out in the Inquiry report. It is, of course, not just Postmasters and their spouses who have suffered as Millie Castleton’s story attests. Sir Wyn Williams records that for many close family members of Subpostmasters “their suffering has been acute.”

Ringing in changes to redress

Which leads me to perhaps the most significant of his findings on compensation. Sir Wyn has recommended that the government “shall devise a process for providing financial redress to close family members of those most adversely affected by Horizon“, if they have suffered “serious adverse consequences by reason of their family relationship with the person or persons directly affected by Horizon”. This would be a step change to the half-in, half-out informal nature of the situation at the moment and give the sons and daughters (and possibly brothers, sisters and parents of Horizon victims) a clear route to redress. Having spoken to so many children who have been badly affected by what happened to their parents, I suspect this recommendation will be welcomed – particularly by the Lost Chances charity – though if the current schemes are anything to go by, they may not see any money come through for years.

Related to the above, Sir Wyn Williams has noted the value of the restorative justice schemes the Post Office has been running. He recognises they were valued by most of the Subpostmasters who asked for them to be arranged. These are opportunities for the Post Office to understand just what they did to people and discuss their concerns away from compensation issues in good faith.

Sam Stein KC, one of the lawyers representing more than a hundred Subpostmasters said these ad hoc arrangements should be formalised, including “ongoing psychiatric and counselling support for Subpostmasters and their families, bursaries to assist with the retraining of postmasters and for the education of their children whose education was disrupted by the scandal” and “an entrepreneurial fund”.

Stein recommended that the Post Office and Fujitsu should be involved in these schemes and could learn from them. Sir Wyn notes that whilst the Post Office has committed to looking into this and submitting a report to the Inquiry, Fujitsu have “declined” to make any commitment. However, Sir Wyn noted that the issue was raised by Kemi Badenoch MP when she was Secretary of State for Business, and as a result he sees that Fujitsu has “with a degree of reluctance” agreed to reopen discussions about their financial and restorative justice responsibilities. Sir Wyn Williams has recommended that the government, Fujitsu and the Post Office “shall publish, either separately or together, a report outlining any agreed programme of restorative justice“.

Jeopardy in compensation offers

This is one of the most egregious situations for compensation claimants. Convicted applicants who have had their convictions quashed can claim a flat Fixed Sum Offer of £600,000 settlement without assessment. Non-convicted claimants (mainly funnelled into the Horizon Shortfall Scheme) are eligible for £75,000. However, the moment they reject this offer and go for assessment, they lose the right to claim the flat settlement sum.

Making that decision is difficult enough, but for applicants to the Horizon Shortfall Scheme there are no government funds available for legal advice. Sir Wyn Wiliams says he regards it as “unconscionable and wholly unfair” that claimants to the HSS are unable to obtain legal advice paid for by the government. Yet, he says, the government “continues to resist this as if its life depended on it”.

Sir Wyn recommends “all claimants in HSS shall be entitled to obtain legal advice funded by the Department prior to choosing between accepting the Fixed Sum Offer [of £75k] or seeking financial redress which is assessed.” He also recommends that any claimant who chooses to go down the assessment route in any scheme has does not lose their right to the flat Fixed Sum Offer if they receive an assessed offer lower than than the fixed sum. He suggests this right only lasts for three months “following the receipt by the claimant of the first assessed offer”. Hmm. Given how long the appeals, adjudication and mediation processes can take, it may be they are nowhere near exhausted before a claimant is forced to make a decision, so the three months seems a little arbitrary to me (it’s not explained, either, unless I’ve missed something).

The bigger picture

Sir Wyn has made a huge recommendation which follows that first posited by Professor Chris Hodges (“Horizon Compensation board Chair calls for Standing Compensation Authority“) which could change the future course of compensation payments for all state-sponsored scandals. Sir Wyn recommends that “as soon as is reasonably practicable, HM Government shall establish a standing public body which shall, when called upon to do so, devise, administer and deliver schemes for providing financial redress to persons who have been wronged by public bodies.”

Other Recommendations

Many of the remainder of Sir Wyn’s recommendations are technical, and are aimed at levelling up the disparities in fairness caused by differences to the way the different compensation schemes are assessed and administrated. I will leave you the joy of reading them in the report when it is published, but two more general recommendations worth noting here (paraprhased accordingly) are:

• The government should define exactly what it’s oft-stated target of “full and fair financial redress” actually means.
• The application deadline to the Horizon Shortfall Scheme should be 27 November 2025.

Sir Wyn has asked that the Post Office, government and Fujitsu (where appropriate) deliver their responses to his recommendations by 10 October 2025. A Post Office spokesman said:

“The Inquiry has brought to life the devastating stories of those impacted by the Horizon Scandal. Their experiences represent a shameful period in our history. Today, we apologise unreservedly for the suffering which Post Office caused to postmasters and their loved ones. We will carefully consider the report and its recommendations.”

The Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds has given a holding response to the report, saying:

“The recommendations contained in Sir Wyn’s report require careful reflection, including on further action to complete the redress schemes. Government will promptly respond to the recommendations in full in Parliament.”

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