Millions of TV viewers throughout the nation had been left appalled as they heard the story of essentially the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British historical past.
ITV’s docudrama, Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, introduced dwelling the sheer horror of Post Office Horizon scandal. Nine hundred Post Office department managers had been wrongly handed legal convictions after defective Horizon accounting software program made it appear cash had disappeared from their branches.
By the top of 2023, solely 93 convictions had been overturned. Some victims of the scandal have even been denied permission to attraction. And the overwhelming majority nonetheless haven’t obtained due compensation.
Having supported one of many victims, I do know simply how horrible an impression the scandal has had on these concerned. Financial ruined. Homes misplaced. Livelihoods destroyed. Reputations wrecked. Families devastated. Some of the accused had been even pushed to suicide.
(
Getty Images)
Years after the reality got here to gentle, the Post Office continues to try to dodge accountability, hiring costly attorneys to put on down its victims. It is outrageous {that a} state-owned physique can behave so disrespectfully in direction of the very individuals it has abused previously. It is an insult to all of us as taxpayers.
Clearly, the present system for coping with the fallout from the scandal is inadequate. The victims have been ready for justice for lengthy sufficient. Things should be sped up.
The finest plan of action is a single attraction on behalf of all of the victims, permitting them to be exonerated en-masse. Every single wrongful conviction is predicated on the identical lie – that solely these convicted had entry to their Post Office accounts. This lie has completed untold harm to the lives of numerous loyal and hardworking Post Office employees. Now the lie has been uncovered, all these convictions should be thrown out in a single go.
This will obtain the aim of formally clearing the names of the victims. And it would permit us to crack on with getting correct compensation for all these cleared.
It may even assist us discover out who is admittedly answerable for the entire catastrophe, and maintain them to account. More than 1,000,000 individuals have signed a petition calling for former Post Office boss Paula Vennells to lose her CBE. We want an intensive legal investigation to find out exactly what involvement individuals like her had, who made the choice to lie and who ought to be punished.
And we should change the legislation to remove the Post Office’s personal proper to prosecute. It should be overseen correctly by an unbiased physique. Only then can we guarantee this human tragedy by no means occurs once more.