Britain introduces legislation overturning Horizon IT system convictions of postal workers
March 13 (UPI) -- The British government introduced legislation to parliament Wednesday that will quash the wrongful theft, fraud and false accounting convictions of hundreds of Post Office sub-contractors who were found guilty on the say-so of a flawed computer program.
The law will automatically overturn convictions resulting from prosecutions brought by the Post Office and the Crown Prosecution Service between 1996 and 2018 with hundreds more who were never convicted but covered losses from their own pockets receiving $96,000 compensation under a separate scheme.
The Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill is expected to void the convictions of the majority of the 900 victims of the faulty Fijitsu-developed Horizon accounting software by July.
Those electing to have their convictions quashed will receive $208,560 within 28 days after which they can opt to accept a one-off $768,000 settlement or have their case adjudicated on an individual basis.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the legislation would go some of the way to helping put back together lives that had been "callously torn apart, although he acknowledged the tragedy of the some 200 people who had since died without receiving justice.
"I want to pay tribute to all the postmasters who have shown such courage and perseverance in their fierce campaign for justice, and to those who tragically won't see the justice they deserve," he said in a news release.
"While I know that nothing can make up for what they've been through, today's legislation marks an important step forward in finally clearing their names.
"We owe it to the victims of this scandal who have had their lives and livelihoods callously torn apart, to deliver the justice they've fought so long and hard for, and to ensure nothing like this ever happens again."
The government had previously admitted that the plan for blanket exoneration of all those convicted could result in a small number of those who actually were guilty of offenses being wrongly cleared, but said it the scale of the injustice meant it was "a price worth paying".
Hudgell Solicitors, a law firm with offices in London, Manchester and Hull, which acts for 100 convicted sub-postmasters welcomed Wednesday's publication of The Post Office Offenses Bill.
Lawyer Neil Hudgell said the day when his clients' names would finally be cleared "cannot come soon enough."
The law will only apply to those convicted in courts in England and Wales.
Calling it "extremely disappointing," Scottish Justice Secretary Angela Constance, urged the legislation be widened to cover all four countries of the United Kingdom -- England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
However, she said Scotland was prepared to introduce its own parallel legislation to the Scottish Parliament, if necessary.
Just six Scottish former sub-postmasters have succeeded in getting their conviction overturned in the courts.
The legislation comes two months after Sunak promised to put right the two-decade-long scandal.
"This is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation's history," Sunak told parliament.
"People who worked hard to serve their communities had their lives and their reputations destroyed through absolutely no fault of their own. The victims must get justice and compensation."
His intervention followed the Jan. 1 airing on national television of an ITV miniseries, Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office, a dramatization of the scandal in which the Horizon software falsely showed financial losses at post offices, leading to sub-postmasters being prosecuted, fined and forced to repay the shortfalls.
Many received prison sentences or became bankrupt.
