The Post Office has spent over £132m of taxpayer money ( £82m in the 12 mon ths to 31^st March 2024, £38m the previous 12 months, and £12m in the year prior to that, defending itself at the inquiry into the wrongful conviction of 900 sub-postmasters who were prosecuted wrongly for shortfalls in their accounts caused by bugs in Fujitsu’s Horizon IT system in what has been described as one of the most widespread miscarriages in British legal history.

Most sub-postmasters wrongly convicted lost their livelihoods or were forced to make up shortfalls from their own money, while some former sub-postmasters took their own lives.

The inquiry came after sub-postmasters fought for years to uncover the corporate injustice even Fujitsu got away scot-free.

Till today despite the catastrophic expense, some sub-postmaster say they have not yet received any compensation while others, such as Sir Alan Bates, argue that they have been offered too little for injustice and trauma.

Post Office chairman Nigel Railton said “ learning from the serious failings of the past. There remains much to learn and to embed into our organisation culturally as we moved forward.”

Former sub-postmaster Keith Bell from Stockton, was found guilty of false accounting in 2002m declared bankrupt and lost his career, and despite legislation to clear victims’ names and pay them compensation becoming law in May, Mr Bell said he still not received “a penny”.

To date Post Office had paid 3, 300 people £499m.

Pauline Stonehouse’s conviction was overturned and she has accepted compensation, but she said the amount had been grossly reduced after it was decided she would not have been able to continue to work- even if she had not lost her job, as she was carer for both her parent before their deaths. “Then in 2018, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and they said basically because of that I wouldn’t have continued as a postmaster either” she said.