Prime minister Rishi Sunak has announced a new law to ensure victims of the Post Office’s (PO) Horizon IT scandal are “swiftly exonerated and compensated”.
The move comes following a week of public outrage sparked by ITV’s drama Mr Bates v The PO, depicting the fight for justice by more than 700 postmasters, after they were wrongly prosecuted based on information from faulty accounting system, called Horizon.
Speaking today, Sunak confirmed the government would introduce new primary legislation to “make sure that those convicted as a result of the Horizon scandal are swiftly exonerated and compensated”.
PO minister Kevin Hollinrake followed the PM’s statement with details on overturning convictions, saying that a mass exoneration is not a “decision we can take lightly”.
He added that convicted postmasters will be required to sign a statement “to the effect that they did not commit the crimes”.
“Anyone falsely signing this will be subject for prosecution for fraud,” he said. “An honest postmaster will have his or her conviction overturned. We want to avoid guilty people walking away with hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money.
“We intend to bring forward legislation as soon as we can to overturn the convictions of all those convicted in England or Wales on the basis of PO evidence given during the Horizon scandal. We recognise this is an exceptional step, but these are exceptional circumstances.”
In addition, a new upfront payment of £75,000 for the “vital GLO postmasters”, who first brought attention to the scandal, will be issued. This will save them from going through a full assessment, but those who believe they are entitled to more can continue with a full assessment.
Subpostmaster Jo Hamilton, who was accused by PO of taking £36,000 from the village shop she ran in Hampshire, told the BBC: “The £75,000 won’t even pay the interest on the debt [some postmasters] are in. These are people who have lost their homes and businesses. They might not have a criminal conviction, but they’re in debt. It’s just wicked. We’ve fought for decades.”
The news comes just a day after former PO boss, Paula Vennells, announced she would hand back her CBE after a public petition demanding she do so surpassed one million signatures.
In a statement, Vennells said: “I am truly sorry for the devastation caused to the subpostmasters and their families, whose lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted as a result of the Horizon scandal.”
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