The Prime Minister is right in saying that they were victims of “one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history”. Unfortunately for many victims the damage done to their lives can never be undone. It should not have needed an ITV drama on the Horizon IT scandal to spur Westminster into action. Any politician saying that the Mr Bates vs The Post Office drama didn’t prompt action is not being completely honest with themselves or the public. Blanket legislation to exonerate subpostmasters convicted in England and Wales is now set to be introduced within weeks. Given the scale of the scandal, it is right that swift justice is delivered for those who have been wrongly convicted. This plan is obviously not without flaws and could see some subpostmasters who did commit crimes being wrongly cleared. But safeguards such as those involved signing a statement saying they did not commit the crime of which they were accused, with anyone subsequently found to have signed that untruthfully putting themselves at risk of prosecution for fraud, could be implemented. The key thing is that those who have been wrongly convicted are cleared and given appropriate compensation. As former Labour minister Kevan Jones says “This is going to be messy whichever way we do it, but it needs to be done because we’ve still got people out there with those convictions that need overturning.” Following the conclusion of the statutory inquiry, there needs to be proper accountability. Those who presided over this scandal must be held responsible.
