Post Office scandal victims face MONTHS-long wait for answers as final report publication kicked back

The chair of the Post Office-Horizon scandal enquiry has confirmed the group's final report will be published at a later date than expected

The chair of the Post Office-Horizon scandal enquiry has confirmed the group's final report will be published at a later date than expected

A major update regarding the historic Post Office Horizon IT scandal has been announced, as victims will have to wait longer for answers.

Sir Wyn Williams, who chairs the inquiry into the scandal, has announced that the remaining five volumes of his Post Office Horizon scandal inquiry report will not be ready for publication for several more months.

This confirmation comes one year after the first part of the report was released and means victims will have to wait longer for the full details.

The inquiry chairman acknowledged that his initial expectations proved unrealistic, stating: "As my drafting work has progressed, however, I have come to realise that my working assumption was too optimistic."

He had originally anticipated completing all remaining volumes within approximately 12 months of last summer, but the sheer scale of material requiring analysis has extended that timeframe considerably.

Sir Wyn explained that properly examining the written and oral evidence, alongside an enormous quantity of documents and comprehensive submissions from core participants, has demanded more time than anticipated.

The Maxwellisation process has now commenced, allowing individuals facing criticism in the report to respond before publication.

Warning letters have already been dispatched to those named in volumes two and three.

Sir Wynn shared: "Further ones will be sent over the course of the coming months to those in volumes four to six."

He acknowledged that many will feel an excessive amount of time has passed since hearings concluded, with yet more delay ahead.

The inquiry chair stated he will not halt work during August and September, the period traditionally observed as the legal profession's summer break.

"I recognise there is compelling need to publish the remaining five volumes of my report as soon as is reasonably practicable," he added.

The chairman emphasised that volumes two through five are fundamentally interconnected and cannot be released separately. Publishing volume six ahead of the others would serve no practical purpose, he claimed.

Sir Wynn stated: "The reality is that I am still some months away from completing the necessary work for the report to be ready for publication."

The inquiry was initially established in non-statutory form on September 29, 2020 before being converted to a statutory inquiry the following June.

It concluded that Post Office executives should have recognised Horizon was flawed yet "maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate" whilst prosecuting subpostmasters.