A senior figure from Fujitsu has apologised for the Horizon scandal and said the company has a “moral obligation” to contribute to the compensation scheme for victims.
Paul Patterson, director of Europe’s Fujitsu Services Limited, told a committee of MPs he was sorry on behalf of the company.
“Fujitsu would like to apologise for our part in this appalling miscarriage of justice,” he said.
“We were involved from the very start.
“We did have bugs and errors in the system and we did help the Post Office in their prosecutions of the sub-postmasters and for that we are truly sorry.”
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MPs quiz Fujitsu – after admission of ‘bugs and errors’
The Horizon scandal saw more than 700 subpostmasters and subpostmistresses handed criminal convictions after Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon software made it appear as though money was missing at their branches.
Some were sent to jail, many were made bankrupt and the scandal has been linked to at least four suicides.
Mr Patterson told MPs the company gave evidence which was used to send innocent people to prison.
He went onto say that the company has a “moral obligation” to contribute to the compensation scheme.
Asked if staff knew before 2010 that there were bugs in the system, he said that was for the inquiry into the scandal to establish.
However he said it was his “gut feeling” that this was the case.
He said he did not know why the company didn’t act when it knew there were glitches in the system.
“I don’t know, I really don’t know,” he said.
“On a personal level I wish I did and following my employment in 2019, I’ve looked back on those situations for the company and from the evidence I’ve seen, I just don’t know.”
It comes as Alan Bates and other campaigners blamed red tape and bureaucracy amid anger over delays for subpostmasters accessing compensation.
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