Was pregnant postmistress jailed due to a system glitch?

Bosses ‘knew about computer error but did nothing during her theft trial’

POST Office chiefs watched a pregnant mother get jailed for ‘stealing’ from the post office she ran – while hushing up a major report revealing a computer accounts glitch.

Seema Misra was one of hundreds of sub-postmasters whose lives were ruined when they were blamed for cash losses in their branches.

She was convicted of theft and sentenced to 15 months while eight weeks pregnant with her second child, after the computer in her village post office recorded a shortfall that could not be explained.

She was jailed on her son’s tenth birthday. Yet a secret internal memo now reveals postal bosses knew at the time there was a problem with the computer system but covered it up.

The explosive document has emerged during a High Court trial in which more than 500 former sub-postmasters are suing the Post Office.

They claim they were wrongly blamed for money going ‘missing’ in their branches when the supposed shortfalls were caused by glitches in the Horizon computer terminals installed by the Post Office.

Many were jailed, bankrupted or otherwise ruined, and at least one suicide was blamed on the errors. The stateowned Post Office has spent £5million of public money defending itself in court and maintains there is no significant problem with its computers.

But it has been forced to disclose confidential emails for the proceedings, including the internal memo in August 2010 which confesses a ‘bug’ in the Horizon software was causing discrepancies in the accounts of about 40 post offices.

The five-page memo, copied to IT experts and Post Office executives, admits: ‘If widely known, [this] could cause a loss of confidence in the Horizon system by branches’, adding there could be a ‘potential impact upon ongoing legal cases where branches are disputing the integrity of Horizon data’.

One such case was Mrs Misra’s. Two months after the secret memo, she went on trial accused of stealing £74,000.

The sub-postmistress, 43, and her husband Davinder, 47, had invested £200,000 to run their village post office in West Byfleet, Surrey.

They put in a further £20,000 of their own money to make up for mysterious shortfalls that plagued their accounts. But the

Losses: Seema Misra Horizon computer system continued to flag up baffling losses.

There was no direct evidence of theft. At her trial, Mrs Misra told jurors about the computer problems but was found guilty of theft without the jury knowing that the Post Office had admitted internally to an IT ‘bug’ two months earlier.

Mrs Misra was given a 15month sentence and spent the second trimester of her pregnancy behind bars. She was released on an electronic tag after four months. Her husband said he felt ‘ashamed of this country’, adding: ‘My wife is a good citizen. We are good people.’ The Criminal Cases Review Commission is examining Mrs Misra’s conviction as a possible miscarriage of justice.

The Post Office’s ‘bug’ memo was written in response to a complaint from another subpostmistress, Pamela Stubbs.

The 557 claimants say the Post Office imposed Horizon on them. The terminals record all over-the-counter transactions. They claim the accounts are held by the Post Office, not the sub-postmasters who have no means of checking errors.

The Post Office denies all the allegations in the case, which is due to last for months, and maintains its computer system was not at fault. It blames error or dishonesty. A Post Office spokesman said: ‘The claimants represent a very small proportion (0.01 per cent) of users of our Horizon computer system.’

‘I am ashamed of this country’