Gold Commander statement

Operation Olympos is the criminal investigation into the Post Office IT Horizon scandal and is focused on the offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice.

I am the Gold Commander and I have overall responsibility for this investigation. It is my role to agree the investigative strategy and ensure that it is supported with the right resourcing, finance and support from across forces, along with unblocking any issues that may sometimes arise along the way. I am supported by a Senior Investigating Officer who sets that investigative strategy and a team of investigators from forces across the country who are helping to deliver it.

The team also has a very close working relationship with the Crown Prosecution Service who have been providing ongoing early investigative advice throughout.
I know that the impact of the Post Office’s handling of the Horizon IT system has been widespread and devastating, affecting hundreds of sub-postmasters.

Since January 2020, investigators began examining what has now become thousands of documents, both manually and with the help of some specialist software. It is important to stress that the investigation has always been running in parallel and independent of the public inquiry. However the material generated in that public inquiry and its final report will be key in terms of any evidence it provides for the criminal investigation.

Given the scale and complexity of the investigation, this next phase is now an agreed national policing effort, coordinated by the Met and delivered by additional regional investigation teams situated across the country. This team numbers around 100 investigators, working under the direction of the Senior Investigating Officer, examining the evidence available, in line with the investigative strategy.

It is important to be clear that we are not re-investigating all of the miscarriages of justice, rather we are looking at the actions of individuals across a number of cases – both criminal and civil. These individuals relate to Post Office investigators and prosecutors, the Post Office executive, along with staff and executives within Fujitsu.
We have been giving a lot of thought as to how we communicate key updates to such a large group of people affected by Horizon, along with the understandable public interest in this case.

This website is the primary interface where the investigation team can provide some general updates and I am sure you will understand that we will not be providing the names of those we are investigating and are limited in what we can say during the course of the investigation. However, I hope that it will be beneficial to provide some general updates periodically using the website, which will also contain details on how to get in touch with the investigation team.

I want to assure all of you affected that we do not underestimate the seriousness of the task at hand and whilst it will take some time, we are determined to carry out a full investigation with independence, precision and integrity.

Thank you.

Commander Stephen Clayman