Post Office Settles Horizon IT Scandal Claims with Victims
The UK government settled compensation claims with Sir Alan Bates and over 9,000 other victims of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, paying out more than Β£1.2bn in total. The Horizon software supplied by Fujitsu contained faults that led to hundreds of wrongful prosecutions of sub-postmasters between 1999 and 2015, with some victims taking their own lives.
What happened
Sir Alan Bates reached a settlement of between Β£4m and Β£5m with the UK government over his Post Office Horizon scandal claim on 4 November 2025, more than 20 years after he began campaigning for justice.
The Horizon software system supplied by Fujitsu contained faults that caused hundreds of sub-postmasters to be wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015.
The government had initially offered Sir Bates a 'take it or leave it' proposal described by him as amounting to 49.2% of his original claim, following earlier offers worth one-sixth and one-third of his requested sum.
Reported impact
The government has paid out over Β£1.2bn to more than 9,000 victims of the Horizon scandal.
Scores of sub-postmasters either ended their own lives or made attempts to do so due to wrongful prosecutions resulting from the faulty Horizon software.
Index analysis
The compensation scheme administering redress has been mired in controversy, with Sir Bates describing it as 'quasi-kangaroo courts in which the Department for Business and Trade sits in judgement of the claims and alters the goalposts as and when it chooses'.
In 2017, Sir Bates and a group of 555 sub-postmasters sued the Post Office in the High Court, ultimately winning a Β£58m settlement.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.