Court quashes convictions of 39 UK postal workers

LONDON: In a ruling that reversed one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history, 39 people who ran local post offices had their convictions for thet, fraud and false accounting overturned on Friday because of what an appeals court said was clear evidence of “bugs, errors or defects” in an IT system.

The decision follows a years-long, complex legal batle that could see Britain’s Post Office face a huge compensation bill for its failures following the installation, from 1999, of what turned out to be the defective Horizon computerised accounting system in local branches.

Dozens of staff were convicted ater the Fujitsu-supplied system pointed to an array of financial misdemeanours that bewildered the postal workers. Six others had their convictions quashed previously, while another 700 or so workers also are believed to have been prosecuted between 2000 and 2014.

What is clear is that those convicted had their lives and livelihoods ruined - beyond the prison sentences that some of them received.

From being pillars of their local communities, they became pariahs.

Jobs, homes and marriages were lost as a result of wrongful convictions, and some did not live long enough to see their names cleared by Britain’s Court of Appeals. Confirmation that the convictions were quashed was met with cheers and tears.

A few botles of bubbly were also popped. Harjinder Butoy, who was convicted of thet and jailed for more than three years in 2008, described the Post Office as “a disgrace” ater his conviction was overturned.

Butoy, who ran a local post office in the north England city of Notingham, said his conviction had “destroyed” his life over 14 years.

“That’s not going to be replaced,” he said outside the Royal Courts of Justice ater the convictions were quashed, adding that those responsible for the needless prosecutions “need to be punished, seriously punished.” Announcing the court’s ruling on Friday, Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde said the Post Office “knew there were serious issues about the reliability” of Horizon and had a “clear duty to investigate” its defects.