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Dozens of former assistant postal directors and postal administrators should have a clear path to overturn their fraud, theft and false accounting convictions.
They were convicted of stealing money after the Post Office installed a new computer system, and some were jailed.
Many have now been told that the Post Office will not dispute their appeals against the conviction.
For years, his criminal record put some of those affected in dire financial straits.
Some struggled to get jobs, lost their homes, and even couldn’t get insurance due to their convictions, but they always said the fault was in the computer system.
The post office said it would not object to 44 of the 47 appeals. The decision makes it almost certain that the convictions will be overturned, although the judges of the Court of Appeal must decide and the Post Office can request a new trial. More cases remain under scrutiny.
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Jo hamilton
Jo Hamilton says she’s “exhausted” from battle
Jo Hamilton is one of the people who have been told that the appeal against her conviction will not be contested.
“I have been fighting for twelve years and it has exhausted us. We have been fighting to prove that we are innocent. There it is in black and white. I am not a criminal,” she said.
“It’s just lasted so long. It’s been a big part of my life.”
Community support
The post office accused Ms Hamilton of taking £ 36,000 from the village shop she ran in Hampshire.
He said problems in Horizon’s computer system led to large discrepancies in his accounts, which he reported to his post office area manager. But that manager couldn’t find anything wrong with the system, and they put her in a situation where “you had to prove your innocence.”
After a harrowing two-year trial, he finally pleaded guilty to false accounting in Winchester Crown Court to escape a more serious theft charge.
He had to quit his store and found it difficult to get a new job due to his criminal record. The criminal record statement also affected daily life, such as not getting car insurance.
She made ends meet doing cleaning jobs for people in her village who didn’t believe she was guilty. Many of them, including the local vicar, came to support her at her sentencing hearing.
Seema Misra says she has been “suffering since 2005”
Another former deputy postmaster, Seema Misra, was pregnant with her second child when she was convicted of robbery and sent to jail in 2010.
She was crying after being told that her appeal would not be contested, saying she had been “suffering” for 15 years as a result of the case.
“Prison was my worst nightmare. I never thought of giving up,” he said.
“I’m so, so happy. Justice has been served. Now I can say my name with pride.”
The post office agreed in December to pay nearly £ 58 million to settle the long-running dispute with more than 500 deputy directors and postal directors affected by the scandal, many of whom had been fired or went bankrupt as a result.
The settlement ended a huge series of court cases involving Horizon’s IT system used to manage the finances of local post offices since 1999.
Earlier this week, the government announced that retired judge Sir Wyn Williams would lead the investigation into the Post Office’s failures after repeated requests for a full public inquiry led by a judge.
What is the Horizon computer scandal?
The Horizon system is designed to record transactions made at a post office.
The Horizon system, developed by the Japanese company Fujitsu, was first implemented in 1999 in some post offices to be used for a variety of tasks, including accounting and inventory.
But from an early stage it appeared to have major bugs that could cause the system to misreport, sometimes involving substantial sums of money.
It was difficult for postmasters to defy bugs because they couldn’t access the information about the software to do so.
After more than 900 prosecutions, 550 deputy administrators brought civil actions against the Post Office, which agreed to pay £ 58 million in damages.
England’s Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has referred 47 convictions submitted under the Horizon evidence to the Court of Appeal.
The Director of the Public Ministry is also considering whether there should be perjury charges against officials who claimed in court that there were no problems with Horizon, even though emails and other documents now suggest they knew there were any.
- Hear the background to the saga – The Great Post Office Trial on BBC Sounds
Attorney Neil Hudgell, who represented 33 of the deputy postal directors, said the Post Office’s decision not to challenge the appeals would have broader implications.
“[This] it’s a historic moment, not just for these people, but in time, potentially for hundreds of others. The door to justice has been opened, “he said.
“Today we are obviously delighted by the people we represent. Clearing their names has been their primary goal from day one, as their reputation and livelihoods were unjustly destroyed.”
Another six cases that were only heard by magistrates go to the Court of Appeal, but instead to another hearing in the Crown Court, but the Post Office will not offer any evidence, which will mean that they will be clarified.
Tim Parker, President of the Post Office, said: “I sincerely regret on behalf of the Post Office the historical failures that seriously affected some post administrators.
“The post office is reestablishing its relationship with the postal administrators with reforms that prevent such past events from happening again.”
