Seema Misra, a former sub-postmistress who was wrongfully jailed whilst pregnant, has rejected former Post Office boss David Smith’s apology. Smith wrote an email congratulating the team behind Misra’s conviction. Misra was eight weeks pregnant with her second child at the time and was sentenced to 15 months in prison for stealing £70,000 from her Post Office branch in the Surrey village of West Byfleet. Smith apologised to Misra at the inquiry into the Post Office scandal, saying that he “poorly thought through” his email following the conviction.
Misra has rejected the apology, stating that the Post Office needs to apologise to her children, who were negatively impacted by her imprisonment. Misra’s eldest son turned 10 on the day she was sent to prison, and she gave birth to her second son whilst wearing an electronic tag. She was one of more than 700 sub-postmasters and postmistresses prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after a fault with the computer system made it look like money was missing from their branches.
Under new legislation expected to be enacted in July, hundreds of those wrongly convicted, including Misra, are set to have their names cleared. However, when it comes to financial redress, only 37 people have received full and final compensation settlements to date. Misra has seen Smith’s email before, and seeing it again during the inquiry has made her “more and more angry,” she said.
Smith was managing director of the Post Office from April to October 2010, prior to Paula Vennells, who was heavily depicted in the ITV drama which thrust the scandal back into the spotlight, taking up the role of chief executive from 2012 to 2019. Smith said his email to the legal team was “thank you for all your hard work…I’m really happy that we have progressed”, and admitted that it was “really poorly thought through” from Misra’s perspective.
Speaking to the inquiry, Smith claimed Misra’s conviction was seen as a “test” of the Horizon system, which the organisation believed was “tamper-proof”. Misra’s conviction was subsequently overturned. Smith denied having knowledge of a Horizon bug before the trial of the subpostmistress in 2010 and was “shocked and frankly appalled” at claims that the Post Office knew of faults in the IT system while prosecuting Misra.
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