“Our ongoing goal is the pursuit of justice.”
An ongoing investigation unprecedented in size and scale will now be supported by a 100-strong team of skilled police officers and staff from across the UK to try and secure justice for the thousands of people affected by the Post Office Horizon scandal.
Operation Olympos is the ongoing criminal investigation into what is often described as the largest miscarriage of justice in British legal history. It has been running since 2020, and in parallel with the Public Inquiry since it began in February 2022. NPCC and the Metropolitan Police Service have been working with Chief Constables across the UK to build a national investigation team, which is now in place. The investigation is currently reviewing over 1.5 million documents, although the true scale is not yet known.
Four Regional Investigation Teams (RITs) are made up from police forces across England and Wales with Police Scotland, Police Service of Northern Ireland and the National Crime Agency, also making a contribution.
Op Olympos is currently investigating offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice and is not a reinvestigation of all of the prosecutions of sub postmasters. It is a focussed and proportionate investigation into potential criminality in the prosecutions of sub-postmasters and the wider presentation of the Horizon IT system as robust.
Commander Stephen Clayman is Gold lead for Op Olympos, he said:
“The sub-postmasters and their families are at the heart of this investigation and our goal is to try and secure justice for those affected by this shocking set of events, the impact of which cannot be underestimated.
“The scale of the task ahead is unprecedented and I am confident we have an excellent team in place, with the support of cutting-edge technology to strengthen our search for information and evidence in amongst the 1.5 million-plus documents obtained and which will grow.
“I do know that if you take into account Post Office criminal and private prosecutions, civil claims and contract withdrawals, there are potentially thousands of victims who we are working hard to identify and build our database so that we can ensure we reach as many affected individuals as possible.
“I cannot make promises that this will be a fast process. An investigation of this size must continue to be undertaken meticulously and methodically and will take time. However, I speak on behalf of our whole team when I say we will approach it with independence, precision and integrity.”
Find out more about the investigation: https://lnkd.in/e9ntbanb
If you have information to share with the investigation team, you can submit this through the Major Investigation Public Portal