Now post staff fight to have theft slurs quashed

POSTMASTERS who claim they were wrongly jailed for theft are to spearhead Britain’s largest ever miscarriage of justice case.

Their lives were ruined when money apparently went missing from their branches. But it later emerged that the Post Office’s counter-top terminals were riddled with bugs.

The Post Office eventually settled a long-running High Court case brought by 550 former postmasters who were wrongly accused, agreeing to pay them £58million last year.

And yesterday the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which examines possible miscarriages of justice, revealed that it is considering pleas from 56 of them to have their convictions quashed.

In a letter to claimants, it says it will decide this month whether to refer the cases to the Appeal Court. If it referred them all, it would be the biggest miscarriage of justice case in the commission’s history.

Jo Hamilton was convicted after her terminal in South Warnborough, Hampshire, recorded inexplicable losses of £36,000. She said: ‘This is the first time in five years I have felt optimistic about my conviction being overturned.

‘The mood changed in their letter and when I hear that there will be a meeting of commissioners in March I am very optimistic. Justice is coming.

Hopefully, unlike some, I’ll still be alive to see the day I get my conviction overturned.’

Tracy Felstead was thrown into jail as a teenager, her supposed crime was to ‘steal’ £11,500 from the post office where she worked in her first job after leaving school. Yesterday the 36-year-old motherof-three said: ‘I have had to endure this my entire adult life since aged 19. I’d like to think justice will now be swift.’

The Post Office settled the High Court case after being lambasted by the judge in a series of excoriating ruling. It had spent years battling its postal veterans and fiercely denying any problem with its IT system.

The publicly-owned service blew an estimated £32million on legal costs fighting the mammoth series of interlinked High Court trials.

Mr Justice Fraser mocked as wishful thinking its description of itself as ‘the nation’s most trusted brand’. And he said the Post Office’s long-running refusal to accept its computer system was faulty ‘amounts to the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the Earth is flat’.

The Post Office said: ‘We are assisting the CCRC to the fullest extent with inquiries concerning past convictions of a number of former postmasters.’

‘I like to think justice will now be swift’