Worksop Guardian 10.01.2024
The Post Office scandal is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history, shaking people’s faith in the principles of equity and fairness that form the core pillars of our legal system.
Many of you will have watched last week’s excellent ITV drama “Mr Bates vs The Post Office” and I am pleased that this has brought an understanding of the Horizon scandal to a much broader audience and raised awareness with the public. This is something I am particularly passionate about, as I am a former Post Office counter clerk myself and many members of my own family also worked for the company, including my father since he left school and until he retired.
Like many of my colleagues, I have received a great deal correspondence from you about the scandal and the emotional impact that the dramatisation has had. Whilst the ITV drama has been important in highlighting the issue, it is also worth pointing out that many have been campaigning and working on the issue for some years and were already well aware of what happened.
It is vitally important that we now expose what went wrong and who was responsible. This is why an inquiry was set up and we eagerly await the findings. In the meantime however, full and final compensation has already been paid to 64% of those people affected. The main concern now is regarding those still waiting for full and final compensation, and the slow pace at which criminal convictions related to Horizon are being overturned by the courts.
Getting justice for those affected by the scandal also involves overturning their convictions and unlocking compensation. That’s why overturning these convictions en masse is something that is now being looked at. Each person whose Horizon conviction is overturned is entitled to an interim compensation payment of £163,000. They can then choose whether to have their compensation individually assessed or to accept an up-front offer of £600,000.
The former Chief Executive of the Post Office has now, following significant public pressure, returned her CBE. This is something I also called for and I believe it was the right thing to do. But this alone is not enough. We must make sure that those responsible for this scandal are brought to account. We need to know who knew what and when they knew it. We need to know more about the role of Fujitsu, who produced the software. We need to know more about prosecutions and who made the decisions to press ahead. It is no more than the victims deserve
