Did Yousaf drag his heels over Post Office scandal?
◆ A decade ago, officials in Scotland raised concerns about ‘the safety of prosecutions using Horizon data’, says Jackie Baillie
The emotive power of ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office provoked such public anger that it has caused a political and legal earthquake.
After years of campaigning, the postmasters wronged by the Horizon computing scandal look like they’re on course to be vindicated. Compressing their suffering into a dramatic fist punched the righteousness of their cause into the public’s consciousness.
Almost overnight, the wherewithal to speed up the process of overturning rotten convictions has been found. Precedent, that age-old excuse for inaction, has been swept aside by the moral outrage over how the postmasters were dealt with. Humza Yousaf is in favour of the swift adoption of a motion allowing the law which will exonerate victims in England and Wales to be adopted in Scotland. Whilst this is welcome, it’s a shame he didn’t act when he was Justice Secretary.
But the story doesn’t end there. Some important questions remain for Scottish ministers. The Horizon scandal is expected to affect up to 100 people in Scotland.
There are differences in how events unfolded in Scotland because of the separate legal system. The Post Office didn't bring prosecutions. It was the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, which are ultimately answerable to the Lord Advocate, a political appointee and the government’s legal adviser. Not for the first time that dual role is being called into question. In Scotland, only two wrongful convictions have been overturned and four people are battling to clear their names. Obviously, we have to ask why it took so long for the appeals process to get started. For years, this scandal has been running through the courts. Could the Scottish Government and Lord Advocate have acted sooner?
Law lecturer Dr Andrew Tickell has unearthed some intriguing evidence from the public inquiry into the scandal. Last November, the Post Office’s head of criminal law Jarnail Singh testified that he had travelled to Scotland in 2014 for “one-to-one” meetings with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to address their “concerns about the safety of prosecutions using Horizon data”. In what now seems like an incredible admission, Singh claimed his meetings “avoided unfortunate developments north of the Border” which could have proved detrimental to the Post Office’s blazing pursuit of postmasters through the courts in England and Wales.
It appears there may have been doubts at the top of the Scottish legal system about proceeding with unreliable evidence about the Horizon system’s alleged infallibility. Were these concerns allayed by the Post Office, as Singh implies, and did that affect the rate of prosecutions? We know of one case where the fiscal refused to prosecute on evidence based on the Horizon system, but did others go ahead?
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has reached out to postmasters, but so far only two people have had their case overturned. A handful are due in court and the Crown Office has indicated it will not oppose the appeals. But that must only be the beginning of righting the wrongs of the Post Office scandal in Scotland.