Richard Brooks

Published: 14 Mar 2026

Post Mortem

Post Mortem book cover

A fantastic outline of an extremely long-running Horizon Post Office scandal, ranging from the very beginning (the birth of Horizon via a tender delivered by ICL/Fujitsu in the 90s) to present day, still unfinished but nearing its end stage with overturning prosecutions and finishing schemes to compensate victims, including some necessary background information around the Post Office’s conception, primarily why the organisation had the power to privately prosecute as well as how inherent distrust of sub-postmasters was ingrained in its medieval origins. The extensive reference and usage of the myriad of documents revealed and produced during this decade long scandal makes the book feel comprehensive and complete in its analysis whilst simultaneously allowing the story to unfold and keep the dizzying chronology simple and straightforward to understand - to focus on the most important aspects, primarily on how institutions (even ones run in the public interest) can cease to function properly when financial and corporate interests supersede human ones - to the point of constructing a multi-decade conspiracy of silence around Horizon and ruining hundreds of lives in the process. A “wasteful government mega-IT project” is nothing new, but ultimately this was a human problem, and its (morbidly) fascinating seeing all ranges of people working for government, public bodies and private corporations all willingly (or unwillingly, via a mass internal pressure to ’not rock the boat’) engulfed in the mass conspiracy of “Horizon is robust” for decades - with many seemingly still “true believers” at the inquiries of how and why this all happened. Ultimately, despite the massive amount of time and energy taken to deliver highly imperfect justice, it does show the power of the “little people”, banding together under obvious injustice and against all odds, achieve some form of victory.