Post Office: Police identify seven suspects related to Horizon scandal
Police investigating the Horizon Post Office scandal have now identified seven suspects, with more than 45 people classed as “persons of interest”.
A “scaled-up” national team of officers has been in place for over six months as part of Operation Olympos – dedicated to looking at crimes related to the Horizon Post Office scandal.
The number of suspects has increased to seven since before Christmas, as part of a UK-wide investigation involving 100 officers.
Four have now been interviewed under caution.
Hundreds of subpostmasters were wrongfully convicted of stealing after faulty computer software created false accounting shortfalls in Post Office branches between 1999 and 2015.
Commander Stephen Clayman, Gold Command for Operation Olympos, described a “huge shift” in terms of their investigation and “significant progress”.
Commander Stephen Clayman
“We’ve got over four million documents that are going to rise to about six million documents,” he said, “but we’re beginning to methodically work through those and looking at individuals who are associated with certain prosecutions.”
He described a “pool of about 45 people plus” classed as “persons of interest”, with that number “expected to grow”.
He added that officers have questioned “some” in the past and “more recently” and are looking at the offences of perverting the course of justice and perjury.
The “wider pool” of persons of interest is made up of Post Office investigators, lawyers, and “management” across Fujitsu and the Post Office.
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Post Office knew about faulty IT system
The team of officers will be identifying actions which could amount to criminal offences on both an individual and corporate basis.
Any decisions made on whether to charge will not happen until after the Post Office inquiry findings are “published and reviewed”.
The Operation Olympos officers are part of four teams – a London hub and three regional teams – who have been described as “highly motivated” across England and Wales.
Police Scotland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland are also helping.
Cmdr Clayman said that officers “will be building a robust case” to pass on to the Crown Prosecution Service.
Officer working in one of the four Operation Olympos teams
He also added that, compared to the inquiry, his officers will have to “prove this to the criminal standard…a much, much higher standard”.
He described feeling “optimistic” and “confident” that the teams will have “some successful outcomes”, and said they are “working as hard and as quickly as (they) can”.
Teams are involved in what has been described as a “focused strategy which gets to the heart of the issues”.
Their investigations are being overseen by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Metropolitan Police.
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Victims have also been told that the police will not be reinvestigating every case but “taking a speculative look at cases” to focus on key people involved and evidence for prosecution.
Operation Olympos is also making use of special software to help process the amount of evidence to sift through material in relation to key events and identified cases.
Of the four suspects interviewed under caution, two were questioned in late 2021, one in late 2024 and the most recent in early 2025.
Paedophile Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins has died after being attacked in prison.
Watkins, 48, was serving a 29-year jail term for multiple sexual offences, including serious crimes against young children and babies at HMP Wakefield, in West Yorkshire.
He was attacked with a knife by another inmate on Saturday morning, sources have confirmed.
West Yorkshire Police said two men, aged 25 and 43, have been arrested on suspicion of murder.
A police van outside Wakefield prison. Pic: YappApp
Watkins was pronounced dead at the scene after prison staff reported the assault to police.
The prison went into lockdown in the immediate aftermath of the incident, sources added.
A Prison Service spokesperson said they could not comment while the police investigate.
Watkins was previously stabbed in an incident at the same prison in 2023, suffering non life-threatening injuries after he was reportedly taken hostage by three other inmates before being freed by prison officers six hours later.
He was sentenced in December 2013 to 29 years in prison, with a further six years on licence, after admitting 13 sex offences, including the attempted rape of a fan’s baby.
Watkins performing in 2004. Pic: PA
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He also encouraged a second fan to abuse her child during a webcam chat and secretly stashed child sexual abuse videos, some of which he had made himself.
At the time, police described him as a “committed, organised paedophile”.
Having found fame in Welsh rock band Lostprophets, Watkins was arrested after his Pontypridd home was searched on orders of a drug warrant in September 2012.
A large number of computers, mobile phones and storage devices were seized during the search.
When sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court, the singer was told he was being given an extended sentence – and a judge said his crimes “plumbed new depths of depravity”.
After being caught with a mobile phone behind bars in 2019, he told a court that he was locked up with “murderers, mass murderers, rapists, paedophiles, serial killers – the worst of the worst”.
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