This is the best summary I could come up with:
Amid growing anger over the treatment of postmasters whose lives have been ruined in the scandal, Whitehall sources have confirmed that a precursor scheme was rolled out in 1995 and 1996 to hundreds of branches in north-east England.
David Davis, the former cabinet minister, said the government is facing a “tidal wave” of public support for the victims in the wake of the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office.
Jones told the Commons in December he had met a former Post Office manager who was protesting their innocence after being prosecuted and convicted under the Horizon pilot scheme.
“Kevan Jones MP raised this matter on the floor of the House of Commons on 19 December and the current postal affairs minister responded to his questions regarding Horizon installations in the north-east of England.
We regularly meet with the Horizon Advisory Board which Mr Jones sits on and is supported by the Department for Business and Industrial Trade and will answer any queries he has as best as we are able to,” a spokesperson said.
Earlier this week, ITV began broadcasting Mr Bates vs the Post Office, a four-part drama charting the scandal and the fight for justice by wrongly prosecuted branch owner-operators.
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JoBo@feddit.uk 11 months ago
I’m pretty sure this was the pilot for the original IT system that was supposed to allow benefit payments to be made through the Post Office. It was terrible and DWP (or whatever it was called then) withdrew and the project was foisted on the Post Office alone and rolled out in 1999. They knew right from the start, before the start, that it wasn’t fit for purpose.
One of the earliest attempts to prosecute was withdrawn because they were forced to acknowledge that it wasn’t fit for purpose:
Cleveleys Post Office boss lifted the lid on ‘biggest miscarriage of justice in modern times’
It’s unfortunate that the local paper has framed it like this. It’s “despite Cleveleys proving the software was faulty way back in 2001, prosecutions continued until 2014 and the cover-up is still ongoing”. But it’s a reasonably short account of what happened back then.
Computer Weekly has done shedloads of reporting, their round up and links to dozens of articles since 2009 is here: Post Office Horizon scandal explained: Everything you need to know
(Most of their links are paywalled, but the internet archive has most of them, or will grab any new ones you offer it.)
Inquiry website and more searchable mirror.