Is this the biggest and most grotesque known miscarriage of justice in UK modern times?
SUB-POST OFFICE FRAUDS?
Not just 2 or 3 or 20 or 30, but 736 sub-postmasters were privately prosecuted by the Post Office for the crimes of theft, fraud, and false accounting between the years 2000 and 2014. Whether or not prosecuted, some 2,400 sub-postmasters’ lives are thought to have been wrecked, financially or reputationally or emotionally, due to claims by the Post Office against them of theft, fraud and false accounting. These sub-postmasters have themselves made claims against the Post Office. In 2019 the Post Office settled 555 civil claims for some £58million, and the High Court that year ruled that the Post Office’s computer software on its Horizon computer system contained bugs and defects, and it was this software which provided the main basis for claims against sub-postmasters. However, still at that time, those convicted were still convicts. Some went to prison, others, it seems, avoided that, perhaps because they confessed to crimes, they knew they had not actually committed.
CONVICTIONS QUASHED
In late April 2021, media reported, with varying degrees of prominence, triumphant scenes of 39 convicted sub-postmasters whose convictions had been quashed by the Court of Appeal with a damning indictment of their wrongful prosecutions and convictions at the behest of the Post Office. The relief was palpable, although so was the grief of the years lost: in many cases individuals who had tried to rectify shortfalls of cash in the relevant Sub-Post Office’s accounts using their own or family money; prison sentences served; community standing, and self-esteem destroyed; in some cases the victims had died and their family stood in their place. The cause had been that the Horizon computer software, supplied by Fujitsu, did not work properly and showed losses of cash, often in large sums, where there were none. The now CEO of the Post Office recognises that significant compensation would be required. But 39 is just the tip of the iceberg. How many cases will now come forward to be examined by the Criminal Cases Review Commission which to date has referred 51 cases to the Court of Appeal for review. In addition, there is a Government inquiry established in 2019 into what happened but it has no statutory basis and so no power to compel witnesses to talk, and is due to report in the Summer of 2021
DEATH BY ADMINISTRATIVE ERROR
The desperate damage inflicted by the errors of the Post Office system is well illustrated by
a story in the Sunday Times of 2 May, about Martin Griffiths, a sub-postmaster, as told by his nephew. Martin Griffiths, having been for 14 years a successful sub-postmaster, in 2009 was confronted by the just upgraded Horizon IT system displaying discrepancies in the relevant accounts, with tens of thousands of pounds having vanished. The Post Office held him personally responsible, not telling him of cases of similar discrepancies in other sub post offices. He and his family repaid £100,000 to the Post Office. Though never prosecuted, after four years of misery, in 2013 he was fired by the Post Office for his failings. Later that year, disgraced and broken, he jumped under a bus and later died. His pain and suffering were and still are shared by all his family.
WHO CARES? DOES THE WALLPAPER IN DOWNING STREET MATTER MORE?
The Sunday Times article asks the question:” Which was more likely: that a government system might have flaws, or that an unprecedented crimewave was sweeping the nation, the criminals all Post Office employees?” Just under 700 people still suffer under the weight of criminal conviction. Some will have died wrongly in disgrace. A great many more have suffered massive financial and emotional hardship, in some cases ruin. Yet where is the sense of urgency from Government? Where are the media chasing this down? In much of the weekend press following the clearance of the 39, the matter barely got a mention. But of course, for days on end, the TV channels and news media repeatedly and tiresomely hammered the public with the “scandal” of the refurbishment of 11 Downing Street. All sense of perspective lost.
JUSTICE DELAYED AND SO JUSTICE DENIED – A SOLUTION IS REQUIRED
The CEO of the Post Office at the time of the destruction of all these Post Office employees, once respected servers of their communities, has been awarded the CBE and undertaken several other respected offices. But, neither she nor any other person from the management of the Post Office has been implicated in the scandal of Horizon and its fallout. Apparently certain defects in Horizon were even known at the time, and, allegedly, it still has faults. What Fujitsu engineers knew at the time is unclear: but was the evidence submitted to the prosecution trials true, and was anything held back? Only an independent statutory enquiry perhaps has the chance of establishing the facts. But how long would that take? Would it not be possible now for example for Government to declare in legislation that all sub-postmasters affected by Horizon be presumed innocent and victims of the Post Office’s errors, so that the Post Office must prove otherwise. That way the hundreds whose cases have yet to be reviewed and who are innocent can with minimal trouble seek reversal of their misfortune and compensation.
This is truly an epic scandal of miscarriage of justice, and perhaps Boris Johnson, who at least initiated the current inquiry and albeit the scandal arose not on his watch, himself needs to step up to the plate, and put that inquiry onto a statutory basis.
