Thirty-nine former subpostmasters who were wrongfully convicted of theft, fraud, and false accounting have had their names cleared on Friday by the Court of Appeal of England and Wales.
The convictions were quashed because the subpostmasters did not stand a fair trial and that the prosecutions have been âan affront to the conscience of the court.â
Judges said the only evidence these convictions were based on was data on Horizonâa defective accounting system introduced in 1999, and that âif the Horizon data was not reliable, there was no basis for the prosecution.â
Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde said that the Post Office Limited (POL) âknew there were serious issues about the reliability of Horizonâ and had a âclear duty to investigateâ the systemâs defects, but it âconsistently asserted that Horizon was robust and reliable,â and âeffectively steamrolled over any subpostmaster who sought to challenge its accuracy.â
POLâs âfailures of investigation and disclosure were so egregious as to make the prosecution of any of the âHorizon casesâ an affront to the conscience of the court,â the judges added.
However, three of the former subpostmastersâWendy Cousins, Stanley Fell, and Neelam Hussainâhad their appeals dismissed by the court because âthe reliability of Horizon data was not essential to the prosecution case and that the convictions are safe.â
Wendy Buffrey, 61, said she was âecstaticâ after the ruling.
âIâm now no longer a criminal, Iâm a victim of the Post Office,â she said.
Buffrey was given 150 hours of community service and had to pay a ÂŁ26,250 ($36,376) shortfall and ÂŁ1,500 ($2.078) towards the cost of her prosecution for two counts of fraud.
âI think the Post Office hierarchy needs to realise that the Post Office is not a trusted brand,â she said.
âIt is the subpostmasters who run those community offices that are the trusted people within the Post Office. They look after their communities.â
Harjinder Butoy, a former subpostmaster in Nottingham who was convicted of theft and jailed for three years and four months in 2008, said his conviction and imprisonment had destroyed his life for 14 years. âThatâs not going to be replaced,â he said.
The vindicted former postmasters will begin discussing compensation soon, and they want to hold those responsible accountable.
âI would like my money back. I reckon I lost around ÂŁ250,000 ($207,862),â Noel Thomas, who had been a county councillor as well as running the Post Office branch in Gaerwen in Anglesey, said.
âI lost my salary, my property, my pensions, and my good name,â he said.
Thomas said he and the other victims felt âthere was no way outâ while in jail, despite knowing they were innocent.
In a statement after the ruling, Post Office chairman Tim Parker said the Post Office is âextremely sorry for the impact on the lives of these postmasters and their families that was caused by historical failures.â
âWe are contacting other postmasters and Post Office workers with criminal convictions from past private Post Office prosecutions that may be affected, to assist them to appeal should they wish,â Parker said.
âPost Office continues to reform its operations and culture to ensure such events can never happen again.â
Based on Horizon data, POL prosecuted 736 subpostmasters between 2000 and 2014. Some went to prison and/or went bankrupt, some have since died.
In a landmark rule in December 2019, the High Court said the Horizon system had âbugs, errors, and defects,â and that there was a âmaterial riskâ that the shortfalls that led to the prosecutions were caused by the system.
Ahead of the ruling, POL had agreed to settle to pay ÂŁ58 million ($80 million) in damages to 555 claimants.
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