By Elliott West
“The most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history”.
Introduction
The British judicial system has been littered with a number of miscarriages of justice over the years and one that is dominating the headlines at the moment surrounds our very own post office system. Between 1999 and 2005 more than 700 branch managers or postal sub-masters as they were called were wrongly handed criminal convictions after a faulty software system called Horizon malfunctioned and made it appear that money had gone missing from their outlets. Under the terms of their contract, these postal operators were liable for any financial losses which the Post Office demanded that they repay the money or face closure, prosecution or a civil claim. As a result, hundreds of hardworking individuals were jailed or left bankrupted and at least four took their own lives.
It is still not known how much money was paid back but the operators claim that tens of millions of wrongly claimed back money was put into Post Office profits. Although an investigation was launched in 2020 and a subsequent compensation scheme was launched, there have only been 93 convictions overturned to date. 27 people have agreed to full and final settlements. 54 cases have been upheld with these people being denied an appeal or withdrawing from the process. A claim that is questioned by the claimants as it was made by the Post Office. The official line is that £151 million has been paid so far in compensation. The Metropolitan Police are investigating two former Fujitsu experts, who were witnesses in the trials for perjury and perverting the course of justice. Fujitsu is the company behind the Horizon software.
Mr Bates v The Post Office
One of the main reasons that this miscarriage of justice has featured prominently in the media again is due to an ITV drama being shown that goes into depth about the scandal and particularly the struggles of one of the victims, Alan Bates, played in the programme by the actor Toby Jones. In 1998, Alan and his partner Suzanne Sercombe used their life savings to buy a Post Office branch in Llandudno, North Wales but lost their investment of £60,000 when the Post Office terminated their contract, following a sum of £1,200 was unaccounted for.
Subsequently, Bates launched his own website to share his concerns about the Horizon system and appealed to other postal sub-masters The group became known as The Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA). Over 500 claimants came forward and in 2018 these claimants took on the Post Office at the High Court. As a result of the Group Litigation Order, the judge ruled that there had been errors in the Horizon system and the Post Office agreed to settle with claimants. An independent public inquiry was also set up in 2020, which became a statutory inquiry at the request of the chair, Sir Wyn Williams. This inquiry is ongoing with the recommendations expected to be published in the Spring/Summer of 2024. A barrister, Paul Marshall representing the postal workers, believes that there is enough evidence for the police to press criminal charges against the Post Office.
Failures
This miscarriage of justice not only the Post Office but the government too. When Sir Ed Davey, now leader of the Liberal Democrats, was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs during the coalition government with the Conservatives, it is alleged that he failed to have a meeting with Alan Bates to address his concerns. Similarly, Pat McFadden, previously in the Labour government of Gordon Brown has a sketchy memory of the events surrounding this scandal and claims that it was not raised. His concentration at the time was to try and prevent wholesale post office closures. Whatever the real course of events, this terrible event has led to a large number of innocent employees having to go through years of hell without justice. The sooner there is a final closure to this event the better with all involved having their convictions quashed and all compensated.
