Guardian online - The Post Office Scandal TV - Nick Wallis, Scandal at the Post Office 2021 - Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The Real Story TV -
Dozens of former Post Office workers had their convictions for theft, fraud and false accounting quashed by the court of appeal on Friday after one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
The decision to clear 39 subpostmasters led to immediate calls for a full public inquiry and for them, and the hundreds caught up in the scandal, to be properly compensated.
Some of the convicted workers were sent to prison, others lost their livelihoods and their homes. Many went bankrupt – and some died before their names were cleared.
So far, those who have been offered compensation are to receive less than £22,000 each after legal fees.
As those cleared left the Royal Courts of Justice, some weeping, they were cheered by supporters and other former Post Office workers.
Vijay Parekh, 62, spent six months in prison after he was advised by his barrister to plead guilty when accused of theft of about £78,000.
‘It was intended to be the business that we would work through towards a comfortable retirement,’ he said, flanked by relatives. ‘The whole family suffered. I was inside, but outside my father was in his 70s and it had an impact on everyone. It was impossible to sleep, you found yourself crying every day. Because of that CRB [criminal history] check you really can’t work anywhere at all. Now it will have been cleared and I could look for a job but I have reached retirement age.’
Campaigners believe that as many as 900 operators, often known as subpostmasters, may have been prosecuted and convicted between 2000 and 2014 after the Horizon IT system installed by the Post Office and supplied by Fujitsu falsely suggested there were cash shortfalls.
In his damning written judgment, Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Picken and Mrs Justice Farbey, said the Post Office, which brought the prosecutions itself, ‘knew that there were serious issues about the reliability of Horizon’.
He wrote: ‘The failures of investigation and disclosure were in our judgment so egregious as to make the prosecution of any of the ‘Horizon cases’ an affront to the conscience of the court.
‘By representing Horizon as reliable, and refusing to countenance any suggestion to the contrary, POL [Post Office Limited] effectively sought to reverse the burden of proof: it treated what was no more than a shortfall shown by an unreliable accounting system as an incontrovertible loss, and proceeded as if it were for the accused to prove that no such loss had occurred.
‘Denied any disclosure of material capable of undermining the prosecution case, defendants were inevitably unable to discharge that improper burden’. As each prosecution proceeded to its successful conclusion the asserted reliability of Horizon was, on the face of it, reinforced. Defendants were prosecuted, convicted and sentenced on the basis that the Horizon data must be correct, and cash must therefore be missing, when in fact there could be no confidence as to that foundation’. Guardian online article 23 April 2021, ‘Court clears 39 post office operators convicted due to ‘corrupt data’: Theft, fraud and false accounting convictions quashed after England’s biggest ever miscarriage of justice’
The world of many sub-postmasters was turned upside down: they found themselves being accused by the post office of false accounting and fraud. Some went to jail. Panorama: The Post Office Scandal, news, BBC 2022
Hundreds of sub-postmasters had their lives turned upside down and it was all because of a faulty IT system … It’s the way that the Post Office dealt with those bugs – this is what has created the scandal. ibid. Nick Wallis, journalist
In 2010, as Seema’s [pregnant] trial was about to begin, a Post Office report shows managers once again chose not to investigate Horizon. ibid.
In fact, 18 months earlier, the Post Office had received legal advice that warned some convictions may be unsafe. ibid.
Suing the Post Office in the High Court – so this is a huge group litigation: 500-plus postmasters suing the Post Office; millions and millions of pounds at stake. Now in a court of law, the Post Office was going to tell us what was really going on. ibid. lawyer
Convictions 1999-2015: 706. It’s the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British legal history. ibid.
For ten years I’ve been investigating a scandal at one of our most loved institutions. It may turn out to be one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history. The Post Office prosecuted hundreds of postmasters over missing money. Nick Wallis, Scandal at the Post Office, Youtube 28.00, 2021
The evidence against the postmasters came from the Post Office’s computer system, Horizon. ibid.
‘They’ve been trying to keep it covering up, the whole thing covered up, about the condition of the system. How many people are sitting on the truth?’ ibid. Alan Bates, subpostmasters’ alliance
557 postmasters took the Post Office to court. Some had been jailed and some had been forced to pay back large sums of money the computer said was missing. ibid.
Bates v Post Office: ‘This approach by the Post Office, in reality, to bare assertions and denials that ignore what actually occurred, it amounts to the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the Earth is flat.’ ibid. court judgment
The Post Office has agreed to pay £58 million in compensation and legal fees but that may just be the start. ibid.
‘I went through hell.’ Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The Real Story, lady victim, ITV 2024
‘Do the post office bosses go to prison too?’ ibid. Outside Court of Appeal
This is the story of a saga that began nearly 25 years ago. A group of sub-postmasters from all over the UK fought to expose one of the widest miscarriages of justice in British legal history. ibid.
‘Dealing with the Post Office has been more difficult than dealing with the Mafia.’ ibid. defence dude
In 1999 management introduced something completely new. A computer system called Horizon. It was the biggest IT rollout in Europe. The Post Office connected forty thousand terminals across the county to one central hub. ibid.
‘I never had a problem balancing until that [Horizon] was installed. And then a couple of months after that I had a very big shortfall …’ ibid. lady victim
‘Just overnight £11,000 …’ ibid.
Under the terms of their contracts, the 20,000 sub-postmasters were liable for any shortfall no matter the cause. ibid.
In north Wales (Llandudno, Conwy) one sub-postmaster took a different approach. ibid.
‘We had someone come in and spat on the floor.’ ibid. Jess, victim
‘I told them straight away I was about £52,000 down.’ ibid. chap victim
‘Let’s see if we can get people together and let’s see how big the problem actually is.’ ibid. Mr Bates
‘I even tried to commit suicide in hospital … and it’s all down to the Post Office.’ ibid. Jess, victim
The day after Michael’s visit to Fujitsu, the Post Office officials paid him a visit. ibid.
‘She [CEO] decided it was preferable to cover-up the injustice and to allow the sub-postmasters to go to the wall. And I think that’s shocking.’ ibid. legal chap
People whose lives have been devastated by the Post Office. Many of them have been bankrupted, prosecuted, or imprisoned. ibid.
During the case The Post Office were forced to disclose evidence they’d always claimed was irrelevant. ibid.