Wronged postmasters

SIR – It is absolutely disgraceful that postmasters wrongly convicted of false accounting or theft should have to apply to have their convictions overturned (report, March 27). This should happen immediately.

There used to be a principle in our legal system that it is better for 10 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be convicted.

Many of these postmasters have said they were told by senior officials that they were the only ones having trouble with the software, but those officials knew that hundreds were having similar problems.

It is high time that these individuals faced the consequences of sending innocent people to prison using false evidence. In my view the penalty for wrongful imprisonment should itself be a prison sentence.

Andrew Rixon

Hertford