Provider of faulty computer system apologizes to hundreds affected by UK Post Office scandal

By PAN PYLAS
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Fujitsu, the company whose faulty computer accounting system resulted in the wrongful conviction of hundreds of Post Office branch managers across the U.K., has apologized to the victims for its role in the country’s biggest ever miscarriage of justice and said it was long aware that the software had bugs. Paul Patterson, the Europe director of Japan’s Fujitsu Ltd., told a committee of lawmakers on Tuesday that the company has a “moral obligation” to contribute to a fund to compensate the branch managers who, over decades, suffered from the failures of the accounting system, which was introduced in 1999. The Post Office’s chief executive, Nick Read, says it has earmarked around a billion pounds ($1.3 billion) for compensation.