Police investigating the scandal over the faulty Horizon accounting system used by the Post Office are now considering corporate manslaughter charges against those responsible, following findings linking the IT failures to at least thirteen suicides.

The move reflects the severity of the wrongdoing once attributed to sub-postmasters but now understood as stemming from systemic and institutional failings.

The Horizon system, built by Fujitsu, was deployed across thousands of Post Office branches between 1999 and 2015. Faults in the software repeatedly showed false accounting shortfalls.

Rather than acknowledging the system errors, the Post Office pursued criminal prosecutions of sub-postmasters on charges of fraud, theft or false accounting.

Over 900 individuals were prosecuted; more than 700 were convicted and some were jailed.

A public inquiry, published in July 2025, concluded that the wrongful convictions and prosecutions were a driving factor in the deaths of at least thirteen victims — six former sub-postmasters and seven others affected by the scandal.

Fifty-nine more said they had contemplated suicide; ten had attempted it.

The report described a “disastrous human impact,” including bankruptcies, ruined families and long-term psychological trauma.

The criminal investigation, known as Operation Olympos, has identified eight suspects and more than fifty people of interest, including individuals at senior levels of the Post Office, Fujitsu and their legal advisers.

Some have already been interviewed under caution, and police say they may also consider gross negligence manslaughter charges against specific individuals.

Under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, a company can be prosecuted if the way its senior management organised activities amounts to a gross breach of a duty of care that leads to death.

Legal experts caution that applying it to suicides linked to operational mismanagement would be uncharted territory in UK law — requiring clear evidence that corporate negligence was a substantial cause of death.

The Post Office scandal is already regarded as among the most serious miscarriages of justice in British history.

If prosecutors proceed with manslaughter charges, it would mark a dramatic escalation — from wrongful prosecutions to potentially holding the institution itself criminally liable for deaths of its former employees and contractors.

The decision now lies with prosecutors and could set a precedent for corporate accountability in the UK justice system.

Victims and their families have welcomed renewed hope for justice — but warn that many have already waited years for redress, and compensation schemes continue to move slowly.

Whether corporate charges will lead to convictions remains uncertain, but the investigation underlines a growing demand for accountability at the highest level.

Meanwhile police have appealed to former Horizon users who signed non-disclosure agreements to come forward, saying such agreements will not block them from giving evidence under the ongoing investigation.

The coming months will likely determine whether the Horizon scandal evolves into a landmark corporate manslaughter case — a test of how far Britain’s legal system will go to hold institutions responsible for failures that have cost lives.