The British government has accused the Post Office of “malevolence” in its dealings with sub-postmasters unfairly accused of theft, as prime minister Rishi Sunak promised to enact laws before the end of the year to quash the convictions of hundreds who were wrongly convicted.
Kevin Hollinrake, the minister with responsibility for the postal system, told the House of Commons on Wednesday that legislation would be introduced “within weeks”. He said the Post Office was “not only incompetent, but malevolent in many of [its] actions” in the scandal.
Earlier in the chamber, during prime minister’s questions (PMQs), Mr Sunak said the issue was “one of the greatest miscarriages of justice” in British history. At least 736, and possibly up to 900, UK sub-postmasters were convicted of theft and fraud between 1999 and 2015 due to cash shortfalls that were, instead, likely the result of the Post Office’s faulty Horizon IT system.
Pressure was heaped on the government to address the issue this week after the new year’s broadcast of an ITV drama series on the scandal, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, led to a huge national outcry, even though the scandal was known about for years.
Mr Hollinrake told MPs on Wednesday that the government was aware of the risks of politicians wading into the legal system to overturn convictions on a “blanket” basis, but that the Post Office scandal was “an exceptional situation that requires an exceptional solution”.
He said sub-postmasters who have their convictions overturned by the legislation and avail of government compensation would have to sign declarations that they are innocent, and any who made wrongful declarations would be at risk of further legal action. Some individuals who were actually guilty could end up having their convictions quashed under the scheme, he conceded, but this was a risk worth taking.
“We need to act quickly and decisively. Time is one thing that we and convicted postmasters do not have,” he said.
Mr Sunak’s spokesman told Westminster reporters following PMQs that the “ambition” was to have the legal exoneration process concluded by the end of the year. Sub-postmasters who have had their convictions overturned will get at least £600,000 (€696,790) in compensation, while another tranche of those affected, who won a lawsuit against the Post Office, will get a further upfront payment of at least £75,000.
Mr Sunak’s spokesman suggested that Fujitsu, the Japanese company that supplied the faulty Horizon software system, was likely to be pursued for recompense if an ongoing public inquiry into the scandal concludes that it was at fault.
“Where culpability is established, people will be held to account,” he said. He said the government did not yet know what the final bill for compensation would be, although it is expected to be several hundreds of millions of pounds.
Chris Head, a former sub-postmaster affected by the scandal, queried why the government had acted only after outrage following the ITV drama. “The scandal has been out there for 20 years,” he told the BBC.
Mr Hollinrake said the issue had been his “top priority for 15 months”.
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