Dozens of people contemplated taking their own life because of their experiences of the UK Post Office Horizon IT scandal, an official report has found.
More than 1,000 post office operators were wrongly accused of taking money from their branches because of faulty software.
Bankruptcy, divorce and vitriolic abuse from the public were among the other “harrowing” impacts laid bare in a long-awaited report from the inquiry on Tuesday.
The inquiry chairman, retired judge Sir Wyn Williams, said at least 59 people “contemplated suicide at various points in time” and “attributed this to their experiences with Horizon and/or the Post Office”.
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He described it as a “common experience” among both people who were prosecuted and those who were not and said 10 of the 59 had attempted to take their own lives, some on more than one occasion.
His report said the families of six former postmasters and seven others who were not postmasters claimed they had taken their own lives “as a consequence of Horizon showing an illusory shortfall in branch accounts”.
Mr Williams said it was a “real possibility” the 13 had died as a result of their experiences of the scandal.
“It is also possible that more than 13 persons, as indicated by the Post Office in response to the inquiry’s requests in March 2025, died by suicide but that some deaths have not been reported to the Post Office or the inquiry,” he said.
Mr Williams’s report told of the range of ways in which the devastating fallout of the scandal affected Post Office workers and their families, from investigations to convictions.
For those who were jailed “life may have seemed close to unbearable” at times, while others who were convicted but not imprisoned often faced “hostile and abusive behaviour from members of the public in the locality”, he wrote.
The convicted people who gave evidence to the inquiry told of the “psychiatric and psychological problems which dogged them throughout the Post Office’s audit and investigation process, the criminal process and thereafter”.
Mr Williams said a “significant number” of those prosecuted and convicted said they contemplated self-harm, while 19 people said they had abused alcohol “and attributed this to their experiences with Horizon and/or the Post Office”.
It is thought approximately 1,000 people have been wrongly prosecuted and convicted across the UK between 1999 and 2015, with somewhere between 50 and 60 people prosecuted but not convicted, Mr Williams said.
Those who were acquitted still faced being “ostracised in their local community”, the report noted.
Many convicted postmasters were declared bankrupt, described by the report as a “complicating factor in a number of claims brought by claimants”.
The report laid out the “catalogue of misfortunes which befell” postmasters and their families.
“In a number of cases relationships with spouses and partners broke down and ended in divorce or separation.”
Elderly parents had provided financial support using their savings in some cases to help children who were sub-postmasters, with the report adding: “Some of those convicted spoke of their immense regret that parents had not lived to see their convictions being quashed.”
A UK government minister said he is “sympathetic” to the recommendations made in the first volume of the Post Office inquiry’s final report.
The Government will respond “properly” to Mr Williams’s recommendations by the inquiry’s October 10th deadline, Gareth Thomas pledged.
“I cannot assuage the anger of the victims, nor will the anger I feel on their behalf ever be assuaged,” business minister Mr Thomas told the Commons on Tuesday.
“But we are determined to do more on redress and beyond, and to do it quickly, to give more of the victims of this appalling scandal, at least, a measure of the peace they so rightly deserve.” - PA/Guardian
