by The head of the Post Office wrote a letter to ministers saying he would support the prosecution of more than 350 of the sub-postmasters convicted in the Horizon scandal.
Chief Executive Nick Read sent the letter to Justice Secretary Alex Chalk last month, informing him that the Post Office would be “bound to oppose” appeals against at least 369 prosecutions.
The document was dated January 9 – the day before the government announced plans for a new law to free and compensate sub-postmasters wrongly convicted in the Horizon scandal.
The Post Office published Mr Read’s letter on Thursday, as the government confirmed it had pushing forward with legislation to automatically overturn convictions by July.
In response, the government said it would introduce “safeguards” to avoid “anyone who has been properly convicted” trying to “benefit” from the compensation scheme.
“Innocent postmasters have suffered an unacceptable and unprecedented miscarriage of justice at the Post Office, which is why we are introducing legislation to speedily deport all those convicted as a result of the Horizon scandal,” said a government spokesman.
In the letter, Mr Read wrote that the Post Office had carried out an external legal review of prosecutions relating to the Horizon IT system between 1999 and 2015.
Hundreds of sub-postmasters were prosecuted during the period for inconsistencies in the IT system, in what has been described as the biggest miscarriage of justice in UK history.
Mr Read wrote that the review found the Post Office was “bound” to oppose an appeal against 369 of around 700 prosecutions made during the Horizon scandal period because the evidence relied on was irrelevant in these cases with the faulty system.
He wrote that a further 11 cases were under review, although there was insufficient evidence to make a decision in 132 cases.
“This clearly raises acute political, judicial and communication challenges in the face of very significant public and parliamentary pressure for some form of acceleration or avoidance of the normal appeals process,” he wrote.
Attached to the letter from Mr Read was a note from Nick Vamos, head of business crime at Peters & Peters, Post Office solicitors.
In the note, Mr Vamos wrote that it was “very likely that the vast majority of those who have not yet appealed were, in fact, guilty as charged and safely convicted”.
The publication of the letters follows allegations from former Post Office chairman Henry Staunton, who claimed there was “really no movement” on payouts to sub-postmasters until after the airing of the ITV drama Mr Bates Vs the Post Office earlier. year.
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The government denied the claim and prompted a high-profile row between Mr Staunton and Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch.
In making the allegations, Mr Staunton pointed out the existence of Mr Read’s letter.
The Post Office published the letter and note on Thursday with a statement that said they were sent to “support the work the Post Office has asked its legal counsel, Peters & Peters, to undertake to proactively identify any convictions on the papers that were available. that could be unsafe”.
“This was mainly about offering any support to the government that could help them think through relevant issues before passing the legislation, without any merit judgment as to what the right course of action is,” a he said in a statement, along with the publication of the letters. .
The Post Office also said that the note provided by Peters & Peters was not requested and was sent to “express the personal views of the author”.
“(The) Post Office was in no way trying to convince the government against mass demonstrations,” he said.
“We fully support any steps taken by the government to speed up the release of wrongfully convicted people and provide redress for victims, with the information provided to inform that consideration.”
On Thursday, the government announced that it aimed to make the holiday “as soon as possible before the summer break” on 23 July.
Writing to the House of Commons, Post Office Minister Kevin Hollinrake said: “As noted in my statement on January 10, the legislation is likely to release some people who were, in fact, guilty of a crime.
“The government accepts that this is worth the price to pay to ensure that many innocent people are freed.”
In an effort to ensure that people are genuine when signing up for compensation related to having convictions overturned, they will be required to sign a disclaimer declaring their innocence.
“Anyone found to have falsely signed such a statement in order to obtain compensation could be guilty of fraud,” Mr Hollinrake said.
An independent statutory public inquiry is underway to obtain a clear account of the performance and failure of the Post Office’s Horizon IT system over its lifetime.
