Post Mortem: The Post Office Horizon IT Scandal – in conversation with Private Eye’s Richard Brooks

Join Private Eye hack Richard Brooks in conversation with Andrew Hunter Murray to discuss Post Mortem, the first forensic account of how the Post Office, the British government and a global IT company ruined the lives of thousands of innocent people. 

For more than fifteen years, sub-postmasters across the country were told that shortfalls in their branch accounts were their fault. The real culprit was Horizon, a faulty computer system supplied by Fujitsu. Rather than admit the problem, the Post Office pursued the people who ran its branches, prosecuting more than 900 of them for theft, fraud and false accounting. 

Drawing on millions of documents unearthed by the public inquiry and the testimony of hundreds of witnesses, Post Mortem pieces together the full story, from the adoption of a flawed IT system and the decades-long persecution of sub-postmasters, to the scandal’s exposure, dramatisation on the nation’s TV screens and – ultimately – vindication for its blameless victims. 

Private Eye has been covering the scandal since 2011, long before it became front-page news and the subject of a hit ITV drama. Richard Brooks has followed the story for the magazine through the landmark High Court case brought by Alan Bates and his fellow sub-postmasters, the quashing of convictions and the ongoing public inquiry. 

The event will close with an audience Q&A.

“Richard Brooks’s concise, clear and seethingly but suppressedly angry book is a hard read for optimists.” – Libby Purves, The Times 

“I’m sorry, I can’t recall the details now” – Paula Vennells 

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