Mass exonerations held up for fear of clearing criminals

MINISTERS’ plans to announce the mass exoneration of convicted Post Office branch managers this week have been slowed by fears that genuine wrongdoers could be included.

Alex Chalk, the Justice Secretary, has held talks with Dame Sue Carr, who as Lady Chief Justice is the country’s most senior judge, about the proposal to address the Horizon IT scandal.

Downing Street is minded to pass a law exonerating subpostmasters convicted after the faulty Horizon computer system showed money missing, as campaigners have demanded.

But in the past 48 hours, ministers have been warned that hundreds of convicted postmasters have cases that do not meet the threshold for being heard in the Court of Appeal.

Many are believed to have been innocent but a small number may be genuine wrongdoers who were convicted for reasons separate from the scandal.

How to provide speedy justice for the hundreds of wronged Post Office branch managers with an exoneration, while still separating out any genuine wrongdoers, has now become the focus of discussions.

Rishi Sunak, Mr Chalk and Kevin Hollinrake, the minister for the Post Office, are continuing to discuss the best approach with legal advisers.

Reforming the structure of private prosecutions after the Post Office used the mechanism to bring its cases is now seen by ministers involved as a longerterm ambition, with exoneration being the focus of discussions.

Two MPS campaigning for justice in this area, Sir David Davis of the Conservatives and Kevan Jones of Labour, told The Daily Telegraph that big organisations should be stripped of their ability to bring private prosecutions.

Mr Chalk told MPS yesterday that a simple Bill to quash the convictions of the subpostmasters and sub-postmistresses was “receiving active consideration”.