MPs have called for “urgent legislation” to overturn Post Office convictions based on its Capture software and warned that “unsafe” convictions based on other pre-Horizon systems are yet to be unearthed.
In its latest report, the business and trade select committee highlighted the potential that there are miscarriages of justice for subpostmasters still to be discovered, adding that there is evidence the Ministry of Justice is “wrongly judging eligibility” of subpostmasters that could appeal against convictions.
Former subpostmasters, who used the Capture system in the 1990s, came forward with their stories following ITV’s 2024 drama about the Post Office Horizon scandal. After campaigning, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) began assessing convictions related to the software, which was also flawed.
The government had already introduced legislation to overturn around 900 convictions based on evidence from the Horizon system. This came in May 2024, when the government faced public outrage after the ITV dramatisation.
The select committee’s call to overturn Capture convictions in the same way is not the first – in 2024, the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board wrote to the secretary of state for justice urging the government to legislate to overturn convictions of subpostmasters based on the Capture system.
‘Ghastly injustice’
In a House of Lords debate last month, peer James Arbuthnot, a member of the Advisory Board, said that if the government fails to overturn convictions of subpostmasters that used the Post Office Capture system, it will perpetuate a “most ghastly injustice”.
In the same debate, peer and fellow Advisory Board member Kevan Jones said: “There are 29 cases of Capture users who were prosecuted. The government’s stance has been to refer them to the CCRC, which I do not think is the appropriate way of doing it.”
The MPs’ latest report said: “There is a serious risk of an unknown number of unsafe convictions – potentially including wrongful imprisonment – that are yet to be uncovered or have any access to justice. And there is now emerging evidence that pre-Horizon IT systems, especially Capture, had similar flaws to the Horizon system that may have contributed to unsafe convictions.”
During a committee hearing in January, the CCRC told MPs on the committee that errors in a number of pre-Horizon IT systems used at the Post Office could be linked to wrongful convictions.
The statutory body’s interim CEO, Amanda Pearce, also said it is “not beyond the realms of possibility” that it will pick up subpostmaster convictions that had no link to software.
Furthermore, due to incomplete records, the current confirmed number of Capture 29 cases being reviewed by the CCRC “may represent just the tip of another iceberg”, said the select committee report.
The CCRC has what it describes as 35 “pre-Horizon applications”, which are categorised in this way because the CCRC knows “they don’t all involve Capture, but other computer systems”, Pearce told MPs in January.
During the 1980s and 1990s, multiple systems were used in Post Offices to automate work before the introduction of the Horizon system. These early systems were susceptible to errors that users and the Post Office did not understand. In the same way as with Horizon, subpostmasters were contractually obliged to take responsibility for unexplained losses.
Following publication of the report, committee chair Liam Byrne MP said: “We were concerned to hear new evidence that suggests unsafe convictions linked to earlier systems, such as Capture, may be only the tip of another iceberg. Parliament must act quickly to quash these convictions and ensure that every victim finally gets the justice they deserve.
“The victims of this scandal have shown extraordinary courage. The country owes them more than apologies – it owes them justice, accountability, and full and fair redress without further delay.”
Redress failures
In its report, the committee also said there are “serious structural failings” in the financial redress scheme, leaving thousands waiting for money they are owed.
Byrne said: “Thousands of victims are still waiting for fair redress, while the processes designed to help them are too often slow, bureaucratic and re-traumatising. That is simply unacceptable after one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history.
Fujitsu was slammed for failing to contribute towards the £1.44bn already paid in compensation to victims of the Post Office scandal, which the IT giant fuelled.
“Worse, Fujitsu has yet to contribute a penny to the nearly £2bn redress bill, even as it continues to benefit from public contracts. That cannot continue. It is simply wrong that taxpayers are covering the costs for Fujitsu’s sins while Fujitsu is still profiting from taxpayers funded contracts,” said Byrne.
Computer Weekly first exposed the scandal in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered as a result of the Horizon system (see below a timeline of all articles since 2009).
