Jailed PO worker rejects apology
FORMER subpost-mistress Seema Misra snubbed a belated apology yesterday from an ex-post office executive who celebrated her imprisonment while she was pregnant.
Former managing director David Smith told the Horizon IT inquiry he acknowledged he had caused “substantial distress” after he congratulated his staff for Mrs Misra’s wrongful conviction.
Mrs Misra began running a Post Office in West Byfleet, Surrey, in 2005, but was suspended in 2008 after being falsely accused of stealing £74,000. She got a 15-month prison sentence on her son’s 10th birthday in November 2010 and was eight weeks pregnant when jailed. Mrs Misra’s conviction was quashed in 2021.
Following her conviction and sentence, Mr Smith sent an email to managers, including Paula Vennells.
It read: “Brilliant news. Well done. Please pass on my thanks to the team.”
Speaking in the witness box at the inquiry yesterday, Mr Smith said that “looking through the 2024 lens” he could see his email to colleagues was “poorly thought through”. In his witness statement to the inquiry, Mr Smith said: “I would like to apologise for that.”
Mrs Misra had to tell her son, then aged 10, that she was going to a “special hospital” because she was pregnant when she was sent to prison.
She served four months. She rejected the apology, adding: “They’re apologising now, but they missed so many chances before. “We had my conviction overturned, nobody apologised. And now they suddenly realised when they have to appear in a public inquiry they have to apologise.” Former chairman of the Post Office Sir Michael Hodgkinson told the inquiry he had “no idea” how its board was kept in the dark about large financial counter-claims made by subpostmasters – including one for £188,000.