The UK government has announced that it will introduce an emergency law to reverse the convictions of individuals embroiled in the Post Office scandal. Postal affairs minister Kevin Hollinrake asserted that over 900 convictions were linked to the scandal over the course of 16 years. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised swift exoneration and compensation for those who were wrongfully convicted. The government is taking this step to act on behalf of individuals whose lives and reputations were ruined by the scandal, which relied on faulty data from an IT software called Horizon.
Hollinrake mentioned that evidence stemming from the ongoing public inquiry into the scandal shows that the Post Office acted with “incompetence and malevolence.” He announced that the decision to dismiss these convictions en masse was unprecedented, and the government had not taken this step lightly considering the potential ramifications. Hollinrake also addressed the important constitutional issues surrounding the independence of the courts and the possible pardoning of guilty persons.
However, Hollinrake emphasized that the government had to act on behalf of individuals who have suffered severely due to wrongful convictions. As a form of safeguard, ex-postmasters would have to sign a document declaring their innocence in order to access compensation, with anyone falsely signing it subject to prosecution for fraud. Sub-postmasters whose convictions are overturned are automatically eligible for £600,000 in compensation. The government also announced a new one-off payment of £75,000 for the 555 ex-postmasters whose group court case helped expose the injustice.
The Post Office scandal involved prosecutions against individuals operating branches of the business based on losses flagged by a faulty IT accounting programme called Horizon, leading them to be accused of crimes like theft or false accounting. The scandal played out largely in the wings for 16 years until ITV’s drama series Mr Bates vs The Post Office thrust it into the spotlight. The inquiry, launched in 2021, aims to get to the bottom of what went wrong
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