‘My 10-year battle to clear name over losses’
Man who ran Post Office gets justice in landmark ruling
A post office manager convicted of false accounting in one of the country’s biggest ever miscarriages of justice has become one of 39 people to have their names cleared.
William Graham, who worked at the Riverhead sub-post office near Sevenoaks, avoided prison when he was sentenced in January 2011 for the concealment of supposed losses which eventually totalled £65,521. His case took place at Maidstone Crown Court.
On Friday Mr Graham was one of 39 former Post Office employees - prosecuted after the Horizon IT system installed by the Post Office falsely suggested there were cash shortfalls - to have their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal in London.
He said: “I am very happy, but also angry that it’s taken this long - and many lies from the Post Office to try and stop these cases.”
Now 53 he lost his job and
struggled to find work with the offence against his name.
It is believed that many hundreds of subpostmasters and subpostmistresses were prosecuted and wrongly convicted between 2000 and 2014 as a result of “bugs, errors and defects” within the computer system.
Mr Graham admitted false accounting over 2008-2009 but the judge accepted none of the money presumed missing was taken by him. He admitted trying to conceal the losses. He was sentenced to 32 weeks, suspended for 18 months.
The legal ruling means 39 former
subpostmasters given similar convictions, have finally had their names cleared. They were prosecuted by the Post Office. Chief executive Nick Read said the ruling was a vital milestone, adding: “I am in no doubt about the human cost of the Post Office’s past failures.”