A year since wrongful convictions of sub-postmasters were first overturned, most say they are no closer to reaching an agreement on monetary compensation.
They have been unfairly accused of theft and incorrect billing by the Post Office due to buggy software.
One victim, Jo Hamilton, told the BBC: “Subpostmasters have lost everything and they must give it back.”
The Post said it wanted to provide “full, fair and final accounts.”
The case has been described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in legal history.
The buggy software installed in the post offices gave the impression that money had disappeared from the branches.
The convictions of 39 people were overturned by the Court of Appeal in April 2021, paving the way for more than 30 others to have their convictions overturned.
Ms Hamilton, who had a criminal conviction for 12 years, told the BBC’s Panorama program that “justice would consist in putting everyone back where they would have been had none of this happened”.
The Post has agreed to make interim payments of up to £100,000 to most of those whose convictions have been overturned. However, the lawyer representing many of the victims says his clients are still a long way from a final agreement.
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Neil Hudgell said the Post’s proposed compensation figures were not reasonable for its customers. As a result, he is calling for more interim payments and is urging the government and the Post Office to ensure cases are closed by the end of this year, as he believes postmasters are “running out of time and money”.
The government has already agreed to foot the full bill for the compensation as the sole shareholder of the Post.
The Post said: “We want to provide full, fair and final accounts and call on the government funding the compensation to help us reach an agreement with the postmasters’ legal representatives and therefore be able to make payments as soon as possible.”
But these individuals are not the only ones still waiting. There are more than 600 others prosecuted by the Post based on the Horizon software, with 33 individual cases currently under review by the Criminal Cases Review Commission in England and Wales and nine in the same process in the Scottish legal system.
Of more than 2,000 others who suffered financially because of the flawed Horizon software, just over half have now received an offer of compensation. Of these, 892 payments totaling £7.1m were made and 44 applications are currently in a dispute settlement procedure as the offer was rejected. Hundreds of others are still waiting to hear if they qualify. Many of these individuals were fired and lost their businesses without ever being prosecuted.
Some 555 people who have filed a civil lawsuit against the Post have also been excluded from compensation. That case forced the Post to admit the bugs in the software and legally paved the way for much that followed, yet most of their settlement was swallowed up by legal fees.
Postal Secretary Paul Scully said last month these people would receive the same compensation as others, but has yet to release details on how that will be done.
Nicola Arch belongs to this group and is frustrated at still not having any answers. “Our lives have been spent fighting all of the time, which is exhausting, especially when we seem to need to fight more,” she recently tweeted.
A public inquiry into the scandal has spent the first two months hearing harrowing evidence from former sub-postmasters in England and Wales, and will travel to Northern Ireland and Scotland in May to hear the human impact of the postmasters’ decisions.
However, all victims hope that someone within the government, the Post and Fujitsu who developed the Horizon software will be held accountable. However, appeals to these witnesses will not begin until the fall, as the inquest has announced a further delay in their progress.
Noel Thomas, who was wrongly sentenced to nine months in prison for false accounting, said he wants those responsible to face some consequences. “People in their position, who are paid a lot of money, who hide the truth; make them feel like I felt when I lost everything overnight,” he told Panorama.
This High Court celebration last year was a huge success for the victims who fought a seemingly impossible battle, but it certainly wasn’t the end of the story.
You can catch Panorama’s The Post Office Scandal on Monday 25 April at 8pm BST in England, 10.40pm BST in Wales and Scotland and 10.45pm BST in Northern Ireland on BBC One via iPlayer.
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