Hundred convicted of stealing. It was a computer glitch.

UK government to pass a law exonerating hundreds of people who were found guilty.

‘One of the greatest miscarriages of justice’: Rishi Sunak leaves Downing Street for prime minister's questions on Wednesday. Picture: Getty Images

The UK government has taken the rare step of proposing a law to overturn hundreds of convictions of people running post offices across Britain who were found guilty of theft or false accounting, an attempt to rectify a miscarriage of justice that has dragged on for decades.

Between 1999 and 2015, some 983 convictions were brought against people managing post office branches across the country, after faulty accounting software mistakenly showed money missing from their business accounts.

The convictions devastated the lives of hundreds of postmasters and postmistresses — who were self-employed and operated local post offices like a franchise — many of whom were driven into bankruptcy, and some of whom ended up in jail. Four died by suicide. One postmistress was jailed while pregnant. Others spent their savings trying to make up shortfalls in their post-office accounts which the accounting system, called Horizon, erroneously flagged. Some 60 have died before having their convictions quashed.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Wednesday that legislation would soon be presented to parliament to ensure convictions are scrapped and compensation is paid, in an unusual move that would see parliament overturn decisions made by the courts. “This is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history,” he said.

The scandal has raised serious questions about Britain’s legal system and whether its clubby political class is deaf to the plight of ordinary people. The software fault has been public knowledge for years, but most of the postmasters were still fighting fruitlessly for justice. It was only after a television drama about the scandal aired earlier this month that a public outcry forced politicians to act.

The Post Office, which is state-owned, for years denied the Horizon computer system — run by Japanese software company Fujitsu — had a glitch, and pursued its postmasters in court, often through an obscure internal judicial system that allowed it to try, investigate and convict postmasters without going through the police or the local courts. Fujitsu “has apologised for its role in their suffering,” a spokesman for the company said.

Josephine Hamilton, a postmistress who was convicted of false accounting and given a suspended sentence, was forced to remortgage her house and asked family to help her pay an ever-growing bill to the Post Office for money the computer system kept saying was missing. “Because of my criminal record, I’ve ended up cleaning,” she told a public inquiry in 2022.

In 2021, the UK Court of Appeal quashed 39 convictions after a case was brought by Hamilton and others, calling it an “affront to the public conscience.” The Metropolitan Police said this week that it is investigating the Post Office for potential fraud offences for having forced postmasters to dig into their own money to make up the alleged shortfalls. The Post Office said it is “doing all we can to right the wrongs of the past” and has offered compensation to 2700 postmasters.

For years, an inquiry into the scandal and a compensation scheme for those who managed to overturn their convictions one by one limped along. But a television drama about the scandal earlier this month by broadcaster ITV, titled “Mr Bates vs. The Post Office,” led to an outcry. Several politicians, who were tasked with overseeing the Post Office, are also being hauled over the coals. The government is also being questioned on why Fujitsu has continued to be handed contracts despite the scandal. The company has declined to comment further, citing ongoing investigations.

So far, the government has paid out £148m in compensation to some of the 3,500 people affected by the Horizon scandal. The government has previously said that Post Office managers who have had wrongful convictions would get £600,000 each in compensation. Of the 93 convictions that have been overturned, only 30 of those people have agreed to “full and final settlements.” Several hundred more who had their convictions overturned aren’t currently eligible for compensation.

This week, the Post Office’s former chief executive, Paula Vennells, who ran the business between 2012 and 2019, returned her honorary title as Commander of the British Empire after pressure from Sunak and an online petition signed by more than a million people. There are also calls to claw back compensation from Fujitsu, which has won billions of pounds in government contracts even after a court ruling in 2019 that found the software was at fault for the scandal.

Former postmaster Alan Bates, played by actor Toby Jones in the ITV drama, humanised the struggle faced by the post-office managers who saw their lives ripped apart by a computer system. The local post office, often a small shop which alongside handling mail provides services to pensioners and a banking system, is a key cog in British life. After being accused of pilfering money, the postmasters lost both their jobs and their standing in their communities, resulting in their children being bullied at school and in some cases having to move home.

Many of the postmasters were minorities. As the accounting problems surfaced, Post Office fraud investigators were asked to group suspects based on skin colour and racial features, including “Chinese/Japanese types,” “Dark Skinned European Types” and “Negroid Types,” according to a document that was later made public. The Post Office apologised last year.

Vipin Patel was charged with stealing more than £75,000 and convicted of fraud with an 18-month suspended prison sentence in 2011. His son Varchas spoke of how “Wanted Dead or Alive” posters were placed near their house and community meetings were held about driving them from their home in Oxford. Vipin Patel now has post-traumatic stress disorder and a heart condition. His conviction was overturned in 2021.

Postmistress Seema Misra was found guilty in 2010 of stealing £74,000 and spent four months in jail. Her conviction was overturned in 2021. In a sworn statement, she described how she would have killed herself had she not been several weeks pregnant when sent to jail. Misra was subsequently assaulted in the street, had to move home and her husband’s taxi company floundered. Out of shame, she didn’t throw a birthday party for her son for eight years. “My life and that of my family was ruined,” she later wrote.

Some pleaded guilty to false accounting, unable to prove that the system was creating the errors and having been told by the Fujitsu helpline that they were the only ones experiencing problems. The government said it was willing to take the risk that it might exonerate or compensate people who did steal because it would be too slow to go back through the courts. “We are well aware of the imperfections of this system,” said Kevin Hollinrake, the business and trade minister.

Former postmaster Lee Castleton was made bankrupt by a civil case brought against him in 2005 by the Post Office alleging that he was liable for shortfalls of about £26,000 at the branch. Castleton represented himself in court, lost the case and was ordered to pay £321,000 in legal costs to the Post Office.

“The civil claim against me and my bankruptcy has destroyed my life and the lives of my family. At the time, I was treated like a thief in our community,” he told the public inquiry.

In 2020, as part of a group litigation, he received £28,500 in compensation.

The Wall Street Journal