Royal guest among 12 more cleared in Post Office scandal
THE Court of Appeal on Monday (19) cleared 12 more former subpostmasters who were wrongly convicted under the Post Office Horizon scandal.
One of them was a guest at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2011.
Hasmukh Shingadia, 62, of Upper Bucklebury, West Berkshire said he was “on top of the world” after hearing the court’s quashing of his conviction. He was wrongly convicted of stealing £16,000 and was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence in 2011 as part of a crackdown.
Shingadia’s case drew media attention as it came just months after he had been a guest at the royal wedding. Having run a post office and shop in Upper Bucklebury,
close to where family of the duchess lived, Shingadia had become friends with her family.
“I was in all the newspapers as the royal wedding guest who was a thief and a fraudster,” said Shingadia, adding the decision was “massive for me and my family”.
“Being a guest at the wedding meant the press focused on my case in court. When I got the call from my lawyers to say the Post Office wasn’t contesting my appeal, I felt on top of the world. Of course, I’ve known I was innocent all along, but for the past decade the legal system has labelled me a criminal, as it has so many others, and that is disgusting,” The Times quoted Shingadia as saying.
According to his legal team, just like other accused subpostmasters, he too was coerced into pleading guilty as the Horizon system was portrayed as being flawless. Shingadia also repaid the shortfall to the Post Office and his eight-month prison sentence was suspended for two years. He was ordered to carry out 180 hours of community service.
The recent quashed convictions of 12 former subpostmasters, also included three who served time in prison.
The subpostmasters had been convicted in the past on the basis of data from a accounting system called Horizon, which showed unexplained shortfalls at branches across the country. The Post Office used its private prosecution powers over 15 years to convict hundreds of subpostmasters.