Post Office admits ‘abhorrent’ racist slur was used to describe suspects in Horizon scandal | UK News

Black Publish Workplace staff who had been falsely accused within the Horizon scandal had been categorised utilizing a racial slur, based on paperwork obtained by campaigners.

Greater than 700 former Publish Workplace employees had been wrongly prosecuted for theft and false accounting in what has been described as “essentially the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK historical past”.

Publish Workplace prosecutors tasked with investigating sub-postmasters had been requested to group suspects based mostly on racial options.

The doc, thought to have been revealed in 2008, requested investigators if the suspects had been “Negroid Sorts” – a racist time period from the colonial period of the 1800s that refers to individuals of African descent.

Different classes on the doc embody “Chinese language/Japanese sorts” and “Darkish Skinned European Sorts”.

The paperwork got here to gentle by way of a Freedom of Info (FOI) request obtained by campaigner Eleanor Shaikh.

She is a supporter of the greater than 700 department managers who had been prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 on theft, fraud and false accounting expenses.

Responding to the FOI, a Publish Workplace spokesperson described it as a “historic doc” however mentioned the organisation didn’t tolerate racism “in any form or kind” and condemned the “abhorrent” language.

They added: “We totally help investigations into Publish Workplace’s previous unsuitable doings and imagine the Horizon IT Inquiry will assist guarantee at the moment’s Publish Workplace has the arrogance of its postmasters and the communities it helps.”

Learn extra:
What is the Post Office scandal?
Victims must be given ‘full, fair and final compensation’

A statutory, impartial inquiry started in 2022 to look at how the Horizon scandal occurred.

The sub-postmasters had been falsely accused of theft and false accounting after a pc system referred to as Horizon was launched by the Publish Workplace in 1999 and incorrectly confirmed shortfalls on firm accounts.

In 2000, the Publish Workplace started taking authorized motion towards sub-postmasters utilizing Horizon information as proof. By 2014, 736 had been criminally prosecuted.

Some ended up in jail, others turned bankrupt making an attempt to repay cash they didn’t owe, and some even took their very own lives earlier than their names might be cleared.

Nonetheless, in December 2019, a Excessive Court docket decide dominated the system contained quite a few “bugs, errors and defects” and there was a “materials threat” that shortfalls in Publish Workplace department accounts had been the truth is attributable to it.

Many sub-postmasters have had prison convictions overturned.