Post Office apologises for serious failures in historical prosecutions

• Quashing of historical convictions is significant milestone
• Post Office stopped prosecutions many years ago
• Fundamental reform of operations and culture implemented

The Post Office today sincerely apologises for serious failures in its historical conduct of prosecutions of postmasters, resulting in the Court of Appeal formally overturning convictions - that occurred between 2003 to 2013 - in uncontested appeals.

The Court quashed 39 convictions, referred by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) last year. The Post Office announced at the earliest opportunity, in October 2020, that it would not oppose 39 of these appeals. The Court upheld the safety of convictions in three cases.

Post Office Chairman Tim Parker said:

“The Post Office is extremely sorry for the impact on the lives of these postmasters and their families that was caused by historical failures.

“Post Office stopped prosecutions soon after its separation from Royal Mail a decade ago and has throughout this appeals process supported the overturning of the vast majority of convictions.

“We are contacting other postmasters and Post Office workers with criminal convictions from past private Post Office prosecutions that may be affected, to assist them to appeal should they wish. Post Office continues to reform its operations and culture to ensure such events can never happen again.

“The full ruling by the Court of Appeal judges published today is detailed, therefore Post Office will assess the Judgment carefully to understand what further action may be required.”

Post Office Chief Executive, Nick Read said:

“I am in no doubt about the human cost of the Post Office’s past failures and the deep pain that has been caused to people affected.

“Many of those postmasters involved have been fighting for justice for a considerable length of time and sadly there are some who are not here to see the outcome today and whose families have taken forward appeals in their memory. I am very moved by their courage.

“The quashing of historical convictions is a vital milestone in fully and properly addressing the past as I work to put right these wrongs as swiftly as possible and there must be compensation that reflects what has happened.

“In addition, since arriving at the Post Office 18 months ago, my focus has been on resetting the culture at the Post Office and forging a substantive partnership with our postmasters. We are determined that they must come first in everything we do because without them there is no Post Office. We must transform the Post Office so that it can continue to provide essential services in local communities across the UK.”

Fundamental reforms

Actions taken to reform the Post Office include:

• Appointing two current postmasters as Non-Executive Directors to the Post Office Board to influence Post Office strategy and the implementation of programmes affecting postmasters.
  
  
• Undertaking a programme of improvements to overhaul culture, practices and operating procedures throughout every part of the Post Office to forge an open and transparent relationship with postmasters.
  
  
• Comprehensive improvements made from initial recruitment and training through to daily transaction accounting, including design changes made to transactions on the Horizon system, based on postmaster feedback.

Cases related to Horizon effectively ceased in 2013, although two cases featuring Horizon evidence were prosecuted in 2015.

Therefore, the Post Office is contacting other postmasters with historical criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 that may be affected, to notify them of the outcome of these appeals and provide information in respect of how they could also appeal. This follows an extensive review by external criminal law specialists of cases dating back to the introduction of the Post Office’s computer system Horizon.

Note to editors:

On 11 December 2020 six former postmasters were formally acquitted in uncontested appeals at Southwark Crown Court, following referrals by the CCRC. These were historical convictions in magistrates’ courts which must be appealed to the Crown Courts.

Most of the referrals by the CCRC were to the Court of Appeal because they relate to convictions in the Crown Court.

Post Office has undertaken an extensive disclosure exercise, by external criminal law specialists Peters and Peters, to identify and disclose material which might affect the safety of historical convictions relating to Horizon.

Post Office no longer undertakes any private prosecutions.