The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Seven more in clear over Post Office scandal
Seven more former subpostmasters who were wrongly convicted as a result of the Post Office Horizon scandal have been cleared by the Court of Appeal.
Yesterday, three senior judges overturned the convictions of seven people who were convicted based on evidence from the faulty IT system used by the Post Office from 2000.
Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Picken and Mrs Justice Farbey, quashed the convictions of Pauline Stonehouse, Angela Sefton, Janine Powell, Anne Nield, Gregory Harding, Marissa Finn and Jamie Dixon.
The former Post Office workers had been accused of offences including theft and false accounting related to shortfalls of tens of thousands of pounds.
Their appeals were unopposed by the Post Office, which accepted that evidence about the reliability of the Fujitsudeveloped system was “essential” to their convictions.
The court heard that Ms Stonehouse, 49, who pleaded guilty to six counts of false accounting in 2008 after suffering a shortfall of more than £15,000, said she had faced unexplained discrepancies in her Sunderland branch since the installation of the Horizon system and that she had “no confidence” in it at the time.
Several of the former Post Office workers had attempted to make up the shortfalls with their own money, the Court of Appeal heard.
Kate O’raghallaigh, representing five of the people who brought unopposed appeals, said they showed the capacity of the Horizon system “to cause great injustice”.
Lord Justice Holroyde said: “We are satisfied that the decisions not to oppose the appeals in these seven cases are realistic and appropriate, and that the appeals should succeed.”
Speaking after her conviction was overturned, Ms Stonehouse said: “To have a good day for a change was nice. We lost our home, we lost our business, we were homeless with two children under the age of eight. We ended up bankrupt, we ended up with nothing.”
The seven newly-cleared former subpostmasters are among hundreds of people who ran Post Office branches convicted of various offences based on evidence from the faulty IT system used by the Post Office from 2000.
More than 70 people have since had their convictions overturned.
Following the seven successful appeals yesterday, a Post Office spokesman said: “Post Office is extremely sorry for historical failures and the impact on the lives of people affected.
“Ahead of final compensation, we are expediting offers of interim payments of up to £100,000 to people whose convictions have been overturned where the reliability of Horizon data was essential to the prosecution.”