Sub-postmasters to have convictions quashed

Post Office will not contest appeals of employees wrongly prosecuted owing to defective IT system

DOZENS of sub-postmasters will have their convictions quashed two decades after a computer glitch led the Post Office to wrongly accuse them of theft, fraud and false accounting.

It is feared as many as 900 former employees may have suffered miscarriages of justice after the Horizon IT system’s introduction in 1999. The system routinely returned shortfalls in accounts, reducing hundreds of subpostmasters to financial ruin, while others were prosecuted and even jailed.

A group action was brought against the Post Office and last year the High Court approved a £58 million settlement for more than 550 claimants.

In a further major development yesterday, the company said it would not be opposing 44 appeals against criminal prosecutions linked to the scandal.

The appeals are the first batch of cases referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, but more are expected to follow.

Tim Parker, the Post Office chairman, said: “I am sincerely sorry on behalf of the Post Office for historical failings which seriously affected some postmasters... Post Office wishes to ensure that all postmasters entitled to claim civil compensation because of their convictions being overturned are recompensed as quickly as possible.”

The Horizon scandal left a trail of ruined lives.

Seema Misra took over her Post Office in Woking, Surrey, in 2005, but quickly found the system was claiming she owed tens of thousands of pounds in shortfalls. She had £20,000 taken from her wages and was dragged before the courts accused of theft – where she received a 15-month jail sentence while she was pregnant. “If I wasn’t pregnant I would have killed myself,” she told The Daily Telegraph last year.

It is now likely she will see her conviction quashed. But others will not be afforded that moment of vindication.

Martin Griffiths, a 59-year-old father from Cheshire, took his own life in 2013, several years after he was wrongly accused of stealing money. The former postmaster was f orced to repay £60,000 after the software erroneously cast a cloud of suspicion over him.

“My uncle had his life and his reputation torn apart by the Post Office and his mental health was completely destroyed, it’s an absolute tragedy,” his nephew, Samuel Caveen, told the Liverpool Echo earlier this year.

Hudgell Solicitors said 33 clients had carried convictions for a decade or longer but they will now be quashed by the Court of Appeal.

Neil Hudgell, the firm’s executive chairman, said: “For the Post Office to concede defeat and not oppose these cases is a landmark moment, not only for these individuals but, in time, potentially hundreds of others.”

The Post Office still intends to contest three of the 47 cases referred to the Court of Appeal.