Robin Garbutt was convicted of murdering his wife Diana in 2010 (Image: PA)
A man convicted of beating his wife to death before fabricating a robbery at the Post Office which they ran to cover it up has claimed he is victim of a massive miscarriage of justice stemming from the unreliable Horizon system.
Robin Garbutt, 57, was jailed in 2011 after he was found guilty of the murder of his wife Diana, 40, at their home above their Post Office in Melsonby, North Yorkshire.
He has continued to protest his innocence, claiming the Post Office used Horizon to suggest he was stealing money in order to finance extravagant purchases.
Without the Post Office’s Horizon evidence, the motive for the murder – and the manner in which it was staged – is called into question, Garbutt’s supporters claim.
In a bid to force a retrial, Garbutt has taken his case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) on a total of three occasions, losing each time, most recently in November 2023, concluding: “Figures from the Horizon system were not essential to his conviction for murder.”
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Yhe post office in Melsonby, North Yorkshire, where Diane Garbutt was murdered (Image: PA)
The acclaimed ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office has shone a light on the scandal, particularly the unreliability of the IT system built by Japanese tech firm Fujitsu.
The Crown’s case was that Garbutt had killed his wife, the postmistress, in March 2010, believing she was having an affair and also out of concern that his theft of thousands of pounds of Post Office cash was about to be revealed.
Post Office investigators, believed to have been involved in the unsafe convictions of sub-postmasters for both fraud and theft, also provided evidence against Garbutt.
Mr Justice Openshaw, in his summing up to the jury which convicted Garbutt, said: “It is the case for the prosecution that money was being stolen from the Post Office and that the theft was concealed by a series of false declarations as to the amount of money in the safe.”
Diana Garbutt, 40, with Robin Garbutt (Image: PA)
Appeal documents, seen by The Telegraph, reveal that a so-called “pattern of fraud” was highlighted using Horizon.
Garbutt’s claim to have been robbed at gunpoint, and that his wife was battered to death by a second assailant was rejected by 10-2 majority.
Handing Garbutt a life sentence at the end of the trial, and telling him he would serve a minimum of 20 years, the judge said: “He struck three savage blows, smashing her skull and causing her immediate death as clearly he intended. This was a brutal, planned, cold-blooded murder of his wife as she lay sleeping in bed.”
But Dr Michael Naughton, a law academic at Bristol University who runs the CCRC Watch and has scrutinised the case, said: “The prosecution used the Horizon evidence to support its claim that the motive for the murder was that Robin Garbutt was stealing money from the Post Office side of the business and he needed to kill his wife to cover it up.
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Robin Garbutt is serving a life sentence at HM Prison Wealstun (Image: PA)
The metal bar Robin Garbutt was convicted of using to kill his wife with (Image: PA)
“Horizon was used to show he was defrauding the Post Office. I don’t know if Robin Garbutt did or did not kill his wife, but I do know that the evidence that led to his conviction is no longer reliable and every aspect has been discredited.”
Speaking yesterday, Garbutt’s brother-in-law Mark Stillborn said: “The prosecution said there was a shortfall which gave him a motive to stage the robbery. They said Diana was doing the accounts and she found out and that is why he killed her.
“I am 100 per cent sure Robin is innocent. Everybody who knows Robin knows he is innocent. Robin is the nicest person you will ever meet.”
Edward Abel Smith, an author writing a book about the case, said: “They used Horizon data to build a picture which showed Robin had been stealing from the Post Office for some time and was now using the robbery to cover up the missing money.”
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Campaigners have pointed out that no forensic evidence has ever linked Garbutt to the murder weapon – an iron bar which was found by police placed on a wall nearby two days after the murder.
In a statement issued in November 2022, the CCRC said: “Much of Mr Garbutt’s application to the CCRC focused on the Post Office Horizon scandal, which has led to several fraud and theft convictions of former Post Office workers being overturned, many after referral by the CCRC. The CCRC decided that this argument could not assist Mr Garbutt, as figures from the Horizon system were not essential to his conviction for murder.”
In a letter sent to the CCRC the following summer from HM Prison Wealstun, where he is incarcerated, Garbutt wrote: “The horror scenewill live with me forever.
“By failing to progress my case to the Court of Appeal you are failing myself, my poor wife and the safety of others as there is a murderer at large. And, whilst I am detained in prison, that will not change.”
