An independent advisory board has urged the government to overturn all the convictions of subpostmasters involved in the Post Office scandal. In a letter to the secretary of state for justice, the board stated that revelations from the statutory inquiry have proven that all the convictions are unsafe. The board, made up of Parliamentarians and academics, was set up to advise the government on compensation payments following the 2019 High Court case that found faults in the Horizon IT system caused accounting irregularities. The board highlighted the Post Office’s questionable behavior in interviews and prosecutions during the inquiry hearings. They recommended overturning all 900+ convictions in order to deliver justice to the majority. The inquiry has revealed that the Post Office withheld crucial information from court cases and that innocent people were wrongly convicted due to flaws in the IT system and prosecutorial misconduct. The advisory board cited serious issues within the Post Office’s behavior that warrant the overturning of convictions. A campaigner for the victims of the scandal also called for a review of all the convictions with the presumption of innocence in mind. So far, over 90 subpostmasters have had their convictions overturned, but the current process for exoneration and compensation is complex and slow. The advisory board argued that declaring all convictions to be unsafe is necessary due to the slow progress in clearing names and the severity of the Post Office’s behavior.
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