ANTI-RACIST campaigners demanded today Post Office management be held to account for “racist language” after new revelations arising from the Horizon IT scandal.

An internal document, discovered through a freedom of information request by a campaigner, showed that fraud investigators were asked to group suspects based on “racial features.”

More than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted by the Post Office for alleged false accounting, fraud and theft based on information from what was later found to be a flawed system. The prosecutions of the innocent subpostmasters have been called the “widest miscarriage of justice in UK history.”

The guidance, revealed on Friday, was reportedly published between 2008 and 2011, and required investigators to give subpostmasters under suspicion a number, according to their racial background.

The categories on the document include “Chinese/Japanese types,” “dark skinned European types” and “negroid types.”

A Post Office spokesperson condemned the language as “abhorrent” but said the document was “historic.”

The spokesperson added: “We fully support investigations into Post Office’s past wrongdoings and believe the Horizon IT inquiry will help ensure today’s Post Office has the confidence of its postmasters and the communities we serve.”

But speaking to the Morning Star at the TUC Black Workers’ Conference in London today Communication Workers Union executie committee member Ian Taylor said: “One of the biggest miscarriages of justice in UK history was underpinned by racial profiling and targeting.

“Those responsible should be held accountable as this remains a publicly owned company.”

Veteran MP for Hackney and Stoke Newington Diane Abbott, said the “racist language used by the Post Office about their postmasters is appalling.

“If they had noted the nationality of the postmasters it would have been unnecessary but explicable. 

She added: “But describing people as ‘negroid’ is racism pure and simple.”

Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (Barac) UK co-chair Zita Holbourne said the use of the “heinous” language showed “racism was at the heart of this scandal.”

And black equity organisation chief executive Dr Wanda Wyporska said: “Yet again we have another example of institutional racism, in one of our major organisations. 

“The language was abhorrent, and adds insult to injury for those who have already suffered at its hands.

“To describe the document as historic is misleading and a distraction. They need to act so that this disgusting episode cannot be repeated.”