The man who spearheaded a campaign to expose the truth behind the wrongful convictions of sub-postmasters has said the latest compensation offer doesn’t go far enough. It comes after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a £75,000 offer for sub-postmasters involved in a group legal action against the Post Office. Ministers are setting aside up to £1billion for compensation.
Blanket legislation to exonerate sub-postmasters convicted in England and Wales is to be introduced within weeks, with Mr Sunak saying they were victims of “one of the greatest miscarriages of justice” in British history.
Former sub-postmaster, Alan Bates, 69, said: “The overturning of convictions is very good news but the priority remains full financial redress to everyone impacted.”
He added that £75,000 is an alternative to having a case independently assessed, suggesting for smaller cases it will probably suffice, but for many cases, “it is not enough”.
Mr Bates told the Mirror: “If someone’s lost their home, business, earning potential, cashed in their pensions, there’s been vast costs over the years. We’re talking over 15, 20 years. It is certainly going to be more than £75,000.
“How you can put a price of the PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) many are suffering. The Government still haven’t addressed the issues of mental health support and treatment needed for not just the victims but the families, too.”
Hundreds of sub-postmasters were convicted of swindling money on the basis of evidence from the flawed Horizon accounting system. The scale of the scandal has prompted the Government to adopt the unconventional approach of new legislation, rather than requiring individuals to challenge their convictions.
Ministers acknowledged the plan could result in some sub-postmasters who did commit crimes being wrongly cleared, but insisted the process was the most effective way of dealing with the vast majority who were victims of a miscarriage of justice.
Downing Street said the “ambition” was for the plan to be implemented by the end of the year. Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake has said just 95 out of more than 900 convictions have been overturned to date.
The Horizon software started to be rolled out in Post Office branches across the UK in 1999 and over the subsequent years a series of subpostmasters were prosecuted over missing funds. In 2019 the High Court ruled that Horizon contained a number of “bugs, errors and defects” and there was a “material risk” that shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts were caused by the system.
The long-running battle for justice accelerated dramatically after ITV broadcast the drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, which highlighted the scandal earlier this month.
Mr Bates, 69, on whom the series is centred, said the fight is not over for many of those still awaiting compensation. He told the BBC: “It is a leap forward, but it ain’t over yet. The devil is in the detail and we’re yet to see that. We’re still going to have to keep pushing the whole issue forward until everyone is sorted.”
He insisted it is the best way to address swiftly the injustice suffered by those caught up in the scandal who have seen “lives ruined by this brutal and arbitrary exercise of power”.
The campaigner said: “Some of those convictions will have relied on the evidence of the discredited Horizon system. Others will have been the result of appalling failures of the Post Office’s investigation and prosecution functions.”
He added evidence from the public inquiry into the Post Office scandal showed “not only incompetence but malevolence in many of their actions”.
Meanwhile, a Post Office investigator who has been described as having a “heavy footprint” in the Horizon IT scandal is due to give evidence for the inquiry’s first hearing of the year.
The statutory inquiry, which began in 2021 and is chaired by retired judge Sir Wyn Williams, has previously looked at the human impact of the scandal, the Horizon system roll-out and the operating of the system. It is now probing the action taken against sub-postmasters.
Former Tory MP Lord Arbuthnot, speaking ahead of the hearing, said on Thursday (January 11) he does not believe the culture at the Post Office has improved in the wake of the Horizon scandal. He told the BBC: “I don’t have a sense that that culture has improved.
“I think they are chastened. I think they are becoming as ashamed as they really should be. But those investigators were not actually investigating. They were just trying to recover money.
“When people called in the investigators for help, because the Horizon system was going so very badly wrong, they got no help, they were just told, ‘Where did you take the money? Where did you put it? Give us the money’, and the post offices were often closed down. It was a shocking story, really horrible.”
