The SNP has said Horizon creators, Fujitsu, must “back up their words with actions” over compensation to victims in the Horizon Post Office scandal.
It comes after Fujitsu’s Europe Director, Paul Patterson, admitted the company owes a “moral obligation” to provide compensation to victims of the mess at the House of Commons Business and Trade Committee on Tuesday.
Marion Fellows, the SNP MP for Motherwell and Wishaw who has been campaigning for justice for sub-postmasters for years, has today written to Mr Patterson urging the company to commit to making a first payment of £10 million to victims of the scandal by the end of January.
Although the sum doesn’t come close to delivering the full financial redress victims are owed, Fellows claimed the payment would be a positive first-step and be a show of good faith going forward.
Commenting, Marion Fellows MP said:
“Fujitsu have profited for decades by covering their mistakes and are complicit in allowing Labour, Lib Dem and Tory mismanagement of their IT failures.
“It’s a positive sign they feel a responsibility to the victims of their mess but they must now back up their words with actions.
“To commit to paying a sum of £10 million to victims by the end of this month, accepting that this will not yet settle everything, but as a positive first-step would be a show of good faith, which seems of short supply in this case.
“No one party to wrecking lives and livelihoods can be let off the hook – and no one who was a victim of this should be made to wait any longer for the justice they’re due.
“Already too many people whose lives and livelihoods were ruined by this scandal have passed away without ever seeing justice or the acknowledgment from those who accused them of wrongdoing that they were innocent all along.
“It falls upon Fujitsu, just as it does the UK government and the Post Office, to deliver justice to those who are still alive to see it by contributing to the full financial redress victims are rightfully owed.”
