Postmasters quizzed when mental health was poor

Investigators in the Horizon computer scandal interviewed postmasters when their mental health was poor and they could not understand the questions being put to them, a judge has revealed. Lady Dorrian said Post Office agents spoke to people suspected of stealing cash from the company at a time when they were experiencing distress.

The Lord Justice Clerk made the remarks in the light of interviews that had been carried out after the Post Office’s Horizon system generated inaccurate information wrongly accusing postmasters of theft.

In a written judgement published by the Court of Criminal Appeal on Tuesday April 30, Lady Dorrian wrote of the reasons why prosecutors did not contest a number of cases which came before the court in the past year.

The Crown did not contest the appeals brought before Lady Dorrian and her colleagues Lord Matthews and Lord Armstrong. The decision led to the convictions of William Quarm, Aleid Kloosterhuis, Susan Sinclair, Colin Smith, Robert Thomson and Judith Smith being quashed.

The judgement tells of how Scottish prosecutors concluded that the six postmasters had been the victims of a miscarriage of justice. The evidence generated by the Horizon computer system was unreliable and could not be relied upon to secure safe convictions.

Lady Dorrian referred to interviews that had been carried out in cases involving Aleid Kloosterhuis, of the Isle of Gigha, and William Quarm, who ran a Post Office branch in North Uist.

Writing about Aleid Kloosterhuis, Lady Dorrian said the investigator tasked with interviewing her made an “incorrect and misleading report” to prosecutors about what emerged from the interview.

Lady Dorrian wrote: “When she made the admissions she was experiencing mental health difficulties.

“In the course of the interview she often appeared confused, not understanding questions or answering in an incoherent way which is at some points difficult to understand at all.

“The admissions in any event were made only in relation to a restricted sum. Despite this, the Post Office Limited (POL) investigator submitted an ‘incorrect and misleading’ standard prosecution report to the Crown which suggested Ms Kloosterhuis made admissions in relation to the entire shortfall.”

Writing about Mr Quarm, Lady Dorrian added: “The interview was conducted when, on the POL’s investigators’ own assessment, the appellant appeared to be in a daze and not understanding the questions put to him.”

Since last year, the appeal court has been dealing with a number of past prosecutions which have been sent to it by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC).

The body investigates potential miscarriages of justices and it believed issues surrounding six sub postmasters should be looked at by appeal judges.

The six were entitled to appeal against the convictions for crimes of dishonesty arising from their roles as sub postmasters at the Post Office.

Between 2000 and 2014, more than 700 sub-postmasters across the UK were falsely prosecuted based on information from the Post Office’s computerised accounting and sales system, Horizon.

Since then, many sub postmasters in England have had their criminal convictions for theft, fraud and false accounting overturned.

The SCCRC referred the cases of Ms Kloosterhuis, 64, William Quarm - who was being represented posthumously - Susan Sinclair, 57, Colin Smith, 62, Judith Smith, 60, and Robert Thomson, 63, to the appeal court in Scotland.

The SCCRC concluded that the five who pleaded guilty did so in circumstances that were, or could be said to be, clearly prejudicial to them.

It also concluded that new information about Horizon which has emerged since Mrs Sinclair’s trial, would have had a material bearing on a “critical issue” at her trial and may have explained why there was a shortfall of funds at the Post Office branch where she worked.

It found that the prosecution could be seen as oppressive because the absence of the relevant evidence rendered the trial unfair.

‘... the appellant appeared to be in a daze and not understanding the questions put to him.’