To hope that the Postmasters who were wrongly convicted/accused of fraud are compensated?

[Pottedpalm]

I know there is no adequate recompense for the horrendous stress, loss of livelihood and , in some cases, imprisonment they have suffered, but they deserve compensation and a public apology.

YANBU. I am normally not a fan of compensation culture but the people who suffered through this deserve an apology and compensation. Poor things. What a terrible time they've been through.

It is disgusting the way these people were treated, I am not sure 21k is adequate compensation for what they went through over the years.

I agree. These people had their lives ruined.

I totally agree OP. My memory of the details is hazy, but I seem to recall that one of the people at the very top of the Post Office at the time now holds a senior post in government.

Apart from the lives ripped apart from the scandal, there doesn't seem to be any honour or accountability left within those at the top of the tree.

It was awful, and I cannot believe the Post Office haven't fully apologised to, exonerated and massively compensated all their victims.

I heard about it through a Modern Mann podcast - he interviewed a couple who were caught up in it, and it is jsut heartbreaking to listen to.
www.modernmann.co.uk/new/justicebynumbers

Of the £58million compensation most of it went on legal fees. £12 million was left to be shared amongst 550 people. The Post Office now says the Government should compensate the people left destroyed by this.

As a child my family were good friends with an older couple who were postmasters who were vilified by our small town.

@megletthesecond

£21k barely touches the sides as compensation.

The compensation was tens of millions but the case was backed by a private equity firm who funded the legal fees. They've taken the majority of the compensation agreed a year ago.

I hope that they get as much compensation as possible, it's an absolutely disgraceful situation, those poor people, some even went to prison!

It’s just astonishing, isn’t it?

There is a BBC Horizon program on this which I am just watching, (available on player) but already aware of this scandal. The Post Office accused hundreds of postmasters of fraud when it was their buggy computer system to blame. Some were sent to prison because the Post Office witheld evidence which could have proved their innocence. Others went bankrupt because they were made to pay back thousands of pounds.

I hope those at the top who covered up will be named and shamed. Unfortunately this rarely happens.

The Post Office prosecuted in house and used these extremely dodgy prosecutions to get proceeds of crime act orders against postmasters.

They need to make sure that the Post Office management responsible for this are hung out to dry and from what I've read they're looking at Fujitsu too.

What's even more galling is that the Post Office's chief exec has the absolute brass neck to call on the government to compensate the victims! Now that's really taking the piss.

The whole thing is a complete and utter scandal. Private Eye were onto it pretty early on and didn’t let go. This extended report of theirs is very well worth reading: www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/justice-lost-in-the-post.pdf

That Private Eye report is shocking. I hope it’s ok to post part of the opening paragraph. It seems important that as many people read it as possible.

On 11 November 2010, a pregnant sub-postmaster from Surrey was driven out of Guildford crown court in a prison van to begin a 15-month sentence for theft. Seema Misra had been convicted of stealing £74,000 in cash from the Post Office branch she ran in West Byfleet even though, in the trial judge’s summing-up: “There is no direct evidence of her taking any money... She adamantly denies stealing. There is no CCTV evidence. There are no fingerprints or marked bank notes or anything of that kind. There is no evidence of her accumulating cash anywhere else or spending large sums of money or paying off debts, no evidence about her bank accounts at all. Nothing incriminating was found when her home was searched.” The only evidence was a shortfall of cash compared to what the Post Office’s Horizon computer system said should have been in the branch. “Do you accept the prosecution case that there is ample evidence before you to establish that Horizon is a tried and tested system in use at thousands of post offices for several years, fundamentally robust and reliable?” the judge asked the jury. It did, and pronounced Seema Misra guilty. In fact, far from being robust and reliable, the Horizon system was full of bugs and glitches. Worse still, the Post Office knew it.

Bloody awful

This quote from a BBC article also hits hard:

Jo Hamilton, who used to run a sub-post office from her village shop in South Warnborough, Hampshire, told BBC News things started to go wrong in 2005. "I got to the end of one week and I was £2,000 short so I rang the helpdesk and they told me to do various things and then it said I was £4,000 short. "They then said I had to pay them the £4,000 because that's what my contract says - that I would make good any losses. "Then while I was repaying that it jumped up to £9,000." Ms Hamilton said that, by the time the figure reached £36,000, she lied to the Post Office - wrongly telling them the books were balancing just so that she could open the office the next day. As result of that, she pleaded guilty to false accounting. She has been paying back the money ever since.

No wonder we have lost so many small and rural branches over the past 20 years.

Yes, it seemed so bewildering and awful for them. Some of the stories were shocking and I hope they get the apology and for things to be made right (as much as possible)

Mind boggling that this happened at all, but not to compensate the people involved is callous and morally wrong.

It's terrifying that the courts have convicted people in situations with absolutely no other evidence of any kind, just on the say so of the post office and their IT system. That poor woman who was pregnant and incarcerated for the birth. It must have been like a dystopian nightmare made real.

£21k compensation is sickening when they have had their whole lives ruined

I half wonder if there wasn't something more malicious behind this - they wanted to actively reduce the number of sub post offices, they were extremely high handed n the way it was dealt with and I do think there should be some criminal prosecutions of those in senior positions within the organisation - stripping away corporate liability and making it personal.

They've been cleared at the high court (breaking news now) so it's a start!

I really hope that they are compensated, yes, though I doubt that there can ever really be proper compensation for all that they have been through.

Came on to mention the private eye report. They’ve been following this for years and years. It’s an utter scandal and the people at the top should not be in their jobs.

I find this so upsetting. How much is your reputation worth? One year's salary from a min wage job? I dont think so!

£58 million compensation was awarded but £48 million was legal fees!!!!!! Disgusting parasites. The only ones that ever win are the solicitors and lawyers.

This is horrendous.
At least one of them took his own life in 2013.
Absolutely heartbreaking.