Subpostmasters are cleared by Court of Appeal

12 more have fraud convictions quashed

ANOTHER DOZEN subpostmasters, including three who served time in prison for crimes they did not commit, have had their convictions overturned by the Court of Appeal.

The group includes former Huddersfield subpostmaster Gurdeep Singh Dale, who was given a suspended prison sentence for false accounting in March 2011, and Hasmukh Shingadia, from Berkshire, whose sentencing for fraud the same year hit the headlines coming just months after he was a guest at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

The Post Office used its private prosecution powers over a 15year period from 2000 onwards to prosecute and convict dozens of subpostmasters of crimes, on the back of unreliable evidence from its faulty Horizon accounting system, which had showed unexplained shortfalls or discrepancies at branches across

the country. The latest appeals were unopposed by the Post Office, and Lord Justice Holroyde said the court would give full reasons in writing at a later date, but that they should be cleared as soon as possible in the circumstances.

Mr Shingadia, who had known Kate Middleton from when she had been child coming to his shop in Upper Bucklebury to buy sweets, said it was a huge relief to see his conviction quashed.

He said: “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.”

Recalling what an awful time it had been, he said his daughters had people telling them at school their father was a thief, and he’d had undergone surgery to remove a sarcoma and had to give up being a magistrate.

They’d had to find £16,000 to repay the Post Office, but managed to keep the shop.

Mr Shingadia said: “A lot of people have supported us over the years, but when all the details about the scandal of Horizon came out people couldn’t really remember what had happened other than the fact I’d been prosecuted.

“It is a long time ago for others, but for those who have lived it, it is something which is with you every day.”