The criminal investigation into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal could be delayed by five years unless it receives millions of pounds in additional funding, police chiefs have warned.
The commander leading the national police inquiry, Stephen Clayman, said the investigation team would need to double in size to meet its current timeline of submitting files for potential prosecutions by late next year or early 2028.
Clayman confirmed that 111 detectives were already working on what he described as a “hugely complex” investigation, but that another 99 officers were needed to stay on schedule.
The Horizon IT system, which began operating in 1999, falsely created accounting shortfalls in Post Office branches for which sub-postmasters were wrongly held liable.
More than 900 people were prosecuted under the scandal, which has been described as the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice, with some individuals dying while waiting for justice.
The criminal investigation, known as Operation Olympos, began in 2020 and is now a joint national inquiry between the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Metropolitan Police Service, with involvement from forces across the UK.
Clayman said £2.8m had been received from the Home Office, but that this fell £16.5m short of what was needed for this financial year alone to boost detective numbers.
A government spokesperson said the scandal was “an appalling injustice” and that the government was “considering requests for further funding.”
Seema Misra OBE, a sub-postmaster who was jailed while pregnant in 2010 after wrongly being accused of stealing £74,000 from her branch in Surrey, said: “It’s very worrying.”
“How can the government spend hundreds of millions of pounds on lawyers dragging this out but it’s different for the common people to get justice? We need accountability,” she told the BBC.
Clayman said seven more suspects had been interviewed under caution this year, bringing the total number of people questioned to 13 out of 53 individuals currently under investigation.
Detectives are dealing with some eight million documents and growing, many of which require forensic review before files can be submitted to prosecutors.
“Only by doing this can we piece together exactly what happened, establish who knew what and understand the role suspects may have played,” Clayman said.
“We cannot underestimate the task in hand,” he added, noting that detectives had been honest with sub-postmasters about the scale of the challenges ahead.
Clayman also warned that overcoming the funding shortfall comes at a time when police forces across the country are already “severely stretched,” compounding pressure on the investigation’s progress.