What is Britain’s Post Office Horizon scandal? | Explained

U.K. police have opened a fraud investigation into Britain’s Post Office over a miscarriage of justice that saw hundreds of postmasters wrongfully accused of stealing money, when a faulty computer system was to blame.

The story so far: U.K. police have opened a fraud investigation into Britain’s Post Office over a miscarriage of justice that saw hundreds of postmasters wrongfully accused of stealing money, when a faulty computer system was to blame.

On January 10, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he will introduce measures to reverse the convictions of more than 900 Post Office branch managers wrongly accused of theft or fraud because of a faulty computer system in what is considered one of the gravest injustices in the nation's history.

The announcement follows a TV docudrama on the wrongdoing that created a huge surge of public support for the former postmasters who have spent years trying to reclaim lives ruined by the scandal.

“This is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation's history," Mr. Sunak said. “People who worked hard to serve their communities had their lives and their reputations destroyed through absolutely no fault of their own. The victims must get justice and compensation.”

Lawmakers said they would provide compensation to those who had been convicted. Some also called for bringing those to justice who were responsible for the wrongdoing.

Some things to know about the scandal:

After the Post Office rolled out the Horizon IT system, developed by Japanese company Fujitsu, in 1999 to automate sales accounting, local Post Office managers began finding unexplained losses they were responsible to cover.