The government was advised Horizon was a 'disastrous project' more than 24 years ago

Back in 1999, Sir Geoff Mulgan was an important but isolated voice in Tony Blair’s senior team who warned that Fujitsu’s Horizon system - which has led to such an appalling miscarriage of justice for so many sub-postmasters - was a monumental crock.

Shortly before the final decision on roll-out of Horizon, in May 1999, he wrote a “lessons learned” note for the then PM Blair.

His language is blunt and unequivocal (there are shades of Dominic Cummings).

It is astonishing that what he said went unheeded.

Here is what Mulgan said more than 24 years ago should be learned: “Horizon has been a fairly disastrous project. It: - was misconceived from the start - has faced continual delays and problems - has over the last year taken up huge amounts of ministerial and official time - has delivered in the end a far from optimal solution“Information: nearly all the facts presented to ministers turned out to be unreliable. Moreover data was presented in ways that were difficult for ministers to understand.

“The Post Office: throughout this process the relative lack of competence of the Post Office and their failure to develop a proper business strategy has been a key failing.“Courage. Perhaps the most important lesson is a more general one: namely that when a project is clearly failing government needs to be bolder about cutting its losses. There was a clear case for termination 12 months ago...”Since then around £2.5bn has been paid to Fujitsu for a system that provided the unreliable evidence behind almost a thousand criminal convictions that ruined lives and should never have been made.

The government cannot claim it was not warned.

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