‘They have utterly failed!’ Richard Tice fumes at MPs over Post Office scandal and makes THREE demands

Since 2012, the company has been awarded almost 200 contracts worth billions, with growing questions about why the Government has not severed ties with the firm in the wake of the scandal.

Speaking on GB News, Reform UK leader Richard Tice questioned why MPs have not been more on the ball, with the issue getting scarce airtime in Parliament until ITV’s drama drew attention to the affair which saw hundreds of postmasters wrongly prosecuted.

“Just before Christmas, this was discussed in the House of Commons”, he said.

“We’ve known about this, MPs blathering on about it. How many MPs were in the House of Commons? Six.

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“It’s an outrage. They have utterly failed the postmasters.”

Tice went on to make three demands to address the scandal, including tech company Fujitsu being subject to sanctions.

“There should be a law passed next week in Parliament that overturns all of the convictions”, he said.

“Don’t wait for judges to take years to overturn these, that’s unacceptable.

“Secondly, taxpayers should not be footing the bill. The Government must announce it is suing Fujitsu for, what I’ve calculated, about £500m.

“Firstly, there has to be emergency legislation. Secondly, the Government has to sue Fujitsu, thirdly, the company bosses of the Post Office and Fujitsu must face criminal trial.

“They lied. I read the massive judgment in December 2019. The judge said he ‘clearly felt the Post Office bosses and Fujitsi bosses lied in court’.

“He added that it was ‘the 21st equivalent of believing the Earth is flat’. Those were his exact words.

“This is really serious stuff. The cosiness going on, the links between Government and top bosses in Fujitsu, some of whom by the way have given hundreds of thousands in donations to the Conservative party.”

A public inquiry into the scandal is ongoing.

The Post Office told the BBC in response to the allegations they are doing “all they can to put right the wrongs of the past, including providing full and fair compensation for those affected”.

A statement said: “We share fully the aims of the public inquiry to get to the truth of what went wrong in the past and establish accountability.

“It’s for the inquiry to reach its own independent conclusions after consideration of all the evidence on the issues that it is examining.”

A Fujitsu spokesman said: “The current Post Office Horizon IT statutory inquiry is examining complex events stretching back over 20 years to understand who knew what, when, and what they did with that knowledge.

“The inquiry has reinforced the devastating impact on postmasters’ lives and that of their families, and Fujitsu has apologised for its role in their suffering.

“Fujitsu is fully committed to supporting the inquiry in order to understand what happened and to learn from it. Out of respect for the inquiry process, it would be inappropriate for Fujitsu to comment further at this time.”