GB News host Eamonn Holmes has weighed in on the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, after the scandal was once again brought to light in a new ITV drama.
Mr Bates vs The Post Office has received high praise from viewers and critics, after documenting the story of over 700 sub-postmasters and mistresses.
The scandal dates back to 1999, after hundreds of sub-postmasters were accused of false accounting, theft and fraud after using the new Horizon IT system.
The accused were then handed criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015, as the faulty software wrongly suggested the employees were stealing the money.
Eamonn Holmes says the Post Office Horizon scandal is the 'first big example of AI gone wrong'
GB News
In the latest developments since the drama aired, former Post Office boss Paula Vennells is facing calls for her CBE to be stripped, with a petition reaching one million signatures from Britons.
Vennells was in charge of the Post Office between 2012 and 2019, and was honoured the same year for services to the Post Office and to charity.
In a discussion about the latest developments in the scandal and Vennells being stripped of her CBE, GB News host Eamonn Holmes hit out at the problem "only being brought to light" because of the ITV drama.
Eamonn highlighted how the show has "brought it all home for everyone", and makes clear that Horizon was the "first AI system gone wrong".
Eamonn fumed: "I find it sad to think that we're only really talking about this because of an ITV drama, and suddenly it brings it all home to everyone.
"I would say this to the viewers and listeners, this is the first big instance of AI gone wrong. We're supposed to trust artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence knows better than us. Accept that it doesn't.
"Who's to blame? Is it the Post Office? Is it the government? What about Fujitsu? I think it's Fujitsu who were behind it."
Eamonn claimed that we need to "hear more" about Fujitsu and those who developed the programme for the Post Office.
Hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly accused and convicted for fraud
PA
GB News Digital Political Editor Millie Cooke explained that there have been "many calls" for Fujitsu to take over the compensation payments to those wrongly accused and wrongly convicted as part of the scandal.
She said: "Fujitsu is worth more than £50 billion. It's a multinational organisation, it's got more than 7000 employees in the UK. So it is currently under a lot of pressure to pay out for these postmasters who are struggling.
"And a lot of them have been financially ruined because they've been forced to pay out of their own pocket for the allegedly siphoned off money that they were alleged to have taken from the Post Offices, and wrongly so."
Have you been affected by the Horizon IT scandal? If you'd like to share your story, get in touch with money@gbnews.uk.
