Victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal will have their convictions quashed under new legislation announced by the Government.
The law is set to come into effect by the end of July and will apply to convictions in England and Wales, clearing convictions defined by a “clear and objective criteria”, according to the Government.
More than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted due to the faulty Horizon computer software between 1999 and 2015.
Many of those found guilty were sent to prison for false accounting and theft as well as being left in financial ruin.
To date, 102 convictions have been overturned, but some of the sub-postmasters affected have died or taken their lives.
The ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office brought the scandal back into the spotlight.
Post Office Minister Kevin Hollinrake in a written ministerial statement said the new legislation would likely “exonerate a number of people who were, in fact, guilty of a crime”.
He added that the Government accepted this as a price worth paying to ensure that many innocent people were exonerated.
About 700 people were prosecuted by the Post Office while a further 283 cases were pursued by agencies including the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Mr Hollinrake said the Government will not include any convictions from the DWP.
Convictions will need to relate to alleged offences during the period that the Horizon IT system was in use and to offences which relate to the scandal – for example theft and false accounting.
The convicted person will need to have been working in a Post Office which used the software and be either a sub-postmaster, one of their employees, officers, or family members, or a direct employee of the Post Office in order to be eligible.
The Government said it would work with the Northern Ireland Executive and Scottish government to make sure their plans to clear victims are compatible with the UK compensation scheme.
Mr Hollinrake said: “The legislation, which will be brought forward shortly, will quash all convictions which are identified as being in scope.
“That scope will be defined by a set of clear and objective criteria which will be set out in the legislation and will not require any element of discretion or subjective analysis in order to be applied.”
