Update provided on compensation for postmasters wrongly convicted in Horizon IT scandal
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Gordon MP Richard Thomson has received details from the Department for Business and Trade on plans to compensate postmasters wrongly accused and convicted of false accounting under the Horizon IT scandal.
Between 2000 and 2014, more than 700 sub-postmasters were prosecuted based on information from the Horizon system, which saw staff wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting.
However, in December 2019 a High Court judge ruled that the system contained a number of “bugs, errors and defects” and there was a “material risk” that shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts were in fact caused by the Horizon system.
Since then, many sub-postmasters have had their criminal convictions overturned, although not before some were sent to prison for crimes they never committed and some even took their own lives.
The UK Government has announced that every postmaster who was wrongfully convicted and has had their conviction overturned as it was reliant on Horizon evidence will be offered £600,000 in compensation.
Mr Thomson said: “This is a welcome move insofar as it shows the UK Government now ‘gets’ that its response up until now has been sadly lacking while Post Office management have shown themselves to be sluggish at best in responding to requests for evidence from the inquiry into this scandal.
“There is, however, a strong argument to be made that as the Horizon Inquiry is still ongoing, that the £600,000 on offer should be an interim settlement, and not ‘full and final’ pending the outcome of that.
"If someone has been wrongly accused of a crime, had their livelihood taken away and then wrongly imprisoned as some of these postmasters have had to endure, I think most people would consider they’d be entitled to considerably more than £600,000 for loss of earnings, employment and liberty. I shall be writing to the Minister on precisely that point.
“The affected sub-postmasters – which includes a number of cases in Scotland and Aberdeenshire – have been through quite enough and deserve their compensation package to be clear, simple but above all, appropriate for the hardships they have had to endure.”
