New law to clear names of wronged UK postmasters

Britain’s government was set to unveil legislation Wednesday to exonerate hundreds of UK Post Office workers wrongly prosecuted over faulty computer software, in one of the country’s worst miscarriages of justice.

Parliament is expected to pass into law the blanket exonerations for offences including theft and false accounting by the summer, with the wrongful convictions quashed shortly afterwards.

“We are overturning hundreds of convictions en bloc,” Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake told Sky News, describing the move as “completely unprecedented”.

More than 700 people running small local post offices received criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 after the faulty Horizon accounting software made it appear that money had gone missing from their branches.

Many ended up bankrupt and shunned by their communities. Some were jailed. At least four people took their own lives. Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he understood nothing could “make up for what they’ve been through” but he hoped the legislation marked an “important step forward in finally clearing their names”.

“We owe it to the victims of this scandal, who have had their lives and livelihoods callously torn apart, to deliver the justice they’ve fought so long and hard for,” he said in a statement.

The government said it would also act to improve the compensation available to different groups of sub-postmasters.

Convicted sub-postmasters will receive up to £600,000 (£767,000), while those not actually convicted but still badly affected by the false accusations made by the Post Office will be entitled to a redress payment of £75,000. Kevan Jones, a main opposition Labour Party MP who campaigned for the sub-postmasters, welcomed the new Post Office Offences bill as “great news”.

The government said it would push the bill through parliament quickly, with the aim of it becoming law “as soon as possible ahead of the summer recess in late July.

The legislation will cover England and Wales. The devolved governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland are expected to introduce their own plans.

A four-part television drama “Mr Bates vs the Post Office”, shown in early January, created a public outcry and galvanized government over the long-running scandal. The series told the story of a group of sub-postmasters wrongly accused and their “David and Goliath” fightback led by one of them, Alan Bates.