Rishi Sunak announces legislation to overturn Post Office scandal convictions

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Rishi Sunak has announced new legislation to overturn the convictions of hundreds of sub-postmasters prosecuted by the Post Office in the Horizon IT scandal.

The UK prime minister told the House of Commons on Wednesday he wanted “justice and compensation” for the more than 700 people convicted between 2000 and 2014 of theft or false accounting using flawed data from Fujitsu’s Horizon software.

“I can announce we will introduce new primary legislation to make sure those convicted as a result of the Horizon scandal are swiftly exonerated and compensated,” Sunak said during prime minister’s questions.

He also pledged a “new upfront payment of £75,000” for some 555 sub-postmasters pursued in civil cases who brought a landmark case in 2019 that ruled they had been forced to make up account shortfalls that were based on faulty data.

“We will make sure the truth comes to light, rewrite the wrongs of the past,” he said, calling the scandal “one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history”.

Compensation of £600,000 had been offered to every sub-postmaster whose conviction for theft or false accounting was overturned. To date, only 93 convictions have been quashed.

The prime minister’s spokesperson said the government hoped to table legislation within weeks and exonerate sub-postmasters before the end of this year.

Kevin Hollinrake, Postal Office minister, told MPs that sub-postmasters would be required to sign an affidavit declaring their innocence before they were eligible for compensation.

He also said that Fujitsu, the company that provided the Horizon software, would be required to foot some of the bill for compensation if it was identified as “culpable” in the scandal by an ongoing public inquiry.

Government procurement records showed that even after Fujitsu’s software was found to be at fault in…