Bryan Glick is a technology journalist, who is Editor in Chief of Computer Weekly. In 2009, Computer Weekly was one of the publications that broke the story of the Horizon IT Scandal. In this interview with AIT Trustee Professor Bill Dutton, both discussed what happened within ICL/Fujitsu and the Post Office and what the IT industry can learn from this, and other similar big IT projects that ‘go wrong’.
Bryan explains how Alan Bates first got in contact with Computer Weekly in 2004, and was encouraged to keep in contact – even though he was the only person saying there were problems with the Post Office’s Horizon system. Another sub post master Lee Collins got in touch in 2008, so journalist Rebecca Thompson investigated and found other sub-postmasters with similar stories, leading to the publication of the investigation in May 2009.
The sub-postmasters reported that their accounts started going wrong after the new system was installed, leading to job losses, bankruptcy, and criminal convictions. Alan Bates and his campaign group continued to find more people with similar stories, leading to increased interest from journalists and broadcasters. Computer Weekly’s publication of the investigation in 2009 was the first time many of the affected individuals realized they were not alone.
The Post Office initially denied any problems with the Horizon software, claiming there were no bugs and that the issues were isolated to individual sub-postmasters. Denial and the lack of understanding of software bugs among non-technical people contributed to the delay in addressing the issue. Eventually, Private Eye, BBC Panorama, and MPs raised awareness and interest in the scandal, leading to a private court case in 2018/19 that proved bugs in the horizon software were responsible for accounting errors.
Both Bryan and Bill discuss the impact of the ITV drama ‘Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office’ in 2024, which brought widespread attention to the scandal and led to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announcing legislation to exonerate all postmasters. While the legislation was a significant step, many sub-postmasters are still fighting for redress and compensation and the Horizon system is still in use, causing accounting errors, and costing the Post Office millions of pounds annually.
The interview highlights how known bugs, poor architecture, inadequate testing and commercial pressure contributed to the Horizon scandal, while leaders lacked the skills or will to ask difficult questions of suppliers and internal teams.
A toxic culture of institutional self-protection, confirmation bias and blind faith in computer-generated data allowed errors to be treated as proof of human wrongdoing rather than signals of system failure. Crucially, responsibility for understanding technology was outsourced and accountability avoided.
For today’s IT industry—especially in the age of AI—the lesson is to be honest about limitations and risks, ensure transparency, maintain human oversight, embed ethical and legal safeguards, and place people and real-world consequences at the centre of digital transformation rather than subordinating them to systems or brands.