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Largest ever miscarriage of justice?

jimbob said:
Absolutely
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You'd think so - but not according to some: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67925304?
...snip...

However, others have disagreed, including former attorney general Dominic Grieve who told the BBC that it would amount to "parliamentary interference in the judicial process".

Instead, he said each case "ought to be considered on its own merits", and sent to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates alleged miscarriages of justice.

...snip...
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Yep of course. I mean that will only take another 20 years or so given the current progress. Many of them will be dead by then so no compensation owed.... win/win! (Extreme sarcasm in case anyone didn't notice it.)

It's not the first time parliament would "interfere" in such a way, for example: https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-government-to-pardon-convicted-gay-and-bisexual-men/

It's just this time we can do so whilst it still means something to an actual victim of a miscarriage of justice.
 
Darat said:
Justice starts with restitution. As I've been saying all along - a blanket pardon needs to be issued and all the people pardoned should immediately get something like a £50,000 payout and then a review body can look at each individual case for exact pay-outs. That body needs to be resourced so it can review all cases for payouts within a 2 year period. The assumption should always be in favour of the people and against the PO. That body could also be tasked with payouts to everyone who had to put in their own money to make right a reported discrepancy but weren't taken to court. That should all be financed by the post office.

Whilst the payouts are ongoing any criminal investigations can continue but there needs to be no hold-up in the pardons and payouts while waiting for such investigations to complete.
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There was a KC (former chair of the bar council, IIRC) on the radio talking about a blanket pardon yesterday. He said that the sub-postmasters don't want one, they want, in the main, to go back to court and to be proven innocent. Additionally, some of those charged and proven guilty are guilty, so a blanket pardon is not appropriate. He said that a blanket pardon is very much a politician's, "something must be done," response.

ETA - and your response above
 
Filippo Lippi said:
There was a KC (former chair of the bar council, IIRC) on the radio talking about a blanket pardon yesterday. He said that the sub-postmasters don't want one, they want, in the main, to go back to court and to be proven innocent. Additionally, some of those charged and proven guilty are guilty, so a blanket pardon is not appropriate. He said that a blanket pardon is very much a politician's, "something must be done," response.

ETA - and your response above
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I understand that feeling but the issue is that they will never get such a hearing anyway, all that is happening is that convictions are being quashed etc, often as a group. A pardon from parliament takes that further - it is a way for the country to be able to say "we are sorry this happened" in the most public way possible.

For a few years I've said that I know such a pardon will probably mean some actual guilty people will be pardoned and may even receive compensation, my response to that is really a "so what?" Our system is meant to be predicated on that old adage of Blackstone's ratio "that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

But I am wondering if some guilty - according to the justice system - people being pardoned is true knowing what we now know is the case i.e. that Horizon's reconciliations could not be considered reliable. How many of the "guilty" would have been found guilty? Remember part of the issue here is (per the link I provided earlier) that the juries (and judges) had to consider the Horizon's reconciliations as reliable. I doubt any actually guilty person would have been found guilty if all the PO had was Horizon's data and it was known that data was unreliable. Reasonable doubt would have been established and therefore no conviction.
 
The PO's evidence gathering was to the standard of it walks like a duck, it is a duck. Exculpatory evidence they ignored included;

- all the sub-postmaster evidence of no problems pre-Horizon and then problems with Horizon
- no evidence of sub-postmasters getting rich, which is what normally happens when someone steals lots of money. Indeed, there was no effort to trace the money, just pressure on the sub-postmasters to pay money back. That they were then remortgaging, borrowing from others etc is odd. That is not guilty conduct after the crime.
- repair and maintenance work by Fujitsu of Horizon, best exampled by the sub-postmaster who blamed a faulty keyboard, which the PO insisted worked, but then admitted was sent for repair, so the case against that sub-postmaster folded.
- the lie that each sub-postmaster was the only one.
- the lack of motive, as there is no evidence any sub-postmaster was in financial trouble prior to Horizon being installed and the appearance of shortfalls.
 
Darat said:
I understand that feeling but the issue is that they will never get such a hearing anyway, all that is happening is that convictions are being quashed etc, often as a group. A pardon from parliament takes that further - it is a way for the country to be able to say "we are sorry this happened" in the most public way possible.

For a few years I've said that I know such a pardon will probably mean some actual guilty people will be pardoned and may even receive compensation, my response to that is really a "so what?" Our system is meant to be predicated on that old adage of Blackstone's ratio "that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

But I am wondering if some guilty - according to the justice system - people being pardoned is true knowing what we now know is the case i.e. that Horizon's reconciliations could not be considered reliable. How many of the "guilty" would have been found guilty? Remember part of the issue here is (per the link I provided earlier) that the juries (and judges) had to consider the Horizon's reconciliations as reliable. I doubt any actually guilty person would have been found guilty if all the PO had was Horizon's data and it was known that data was unreliable. Reasonable doubt would have been established and therefore no conviction.
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Summary on the BBC website
 
Since 2019 Post Office Ruling where judge said he would refer Fujitsu to the DPP, the Tory Govt has given Fujitsu
£4.9 billion of solo & joint public-sector contracts
inc £3.6 billion after Sunak became chancellor.
 
Apart from the obvious, Paula Vennells got her CBE for the mass closure of post offices and turning those that remained into franchised vape shops.
 
Urgent Question, rather. The Tories contrived to announce the proposed exoneration via a a tame question at PMQ's
 
It did cause me a chuckle that someone will have to sign that they didn't commit the crime and could be charged with fraud if they sign and they did commit the crime. Quite ironic considering fraud is one of the crimes the PO and its senior execs should be charged with.
 
Nigel said

"Sir Keir never stops telling us about his time as DPP. Given that this is the greatest miscarriage of justice ever (and that it happened on his watch), I think that asking questions is very reasonable"
 
Nigel really pushing it

"The Horizon scandal is getting worse for Keir Starmer as it emerges that at least 27 cases against subpostmasters were brought by the CPS.

As the scandal grew, and hundreds of innocent people were convicted, he did nothing. Time for some answers."
 
Farage ignores the Post Office's role and that the cases the CPS brought, could well be the cases the government accepts may be guilty people who are now going to be found innocent and compensated.

How the Post Office covered up their crimes is being revealed;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-67941754

"Woking MP Jonathan Lord first called for an inquiry into Post Office prosecutions in 2011...
Lord says that backbenchers came forward on behalf of constituents and that they encouraged the Post Office to get forensic accountants.
“As soon as those accountants started to find out things to worry the Post Office they terminated their contracts immediately and didn’t allow them to speak outside of the Post Office.”"

Vennells had become CEO in April 2012.
 
Darat said:
I don't understand why people are saying option one is difficult - we've done it several times. And indeed, done it for thousands of people who were not subject to a miscarriage of justice, it was done simply because times have changed.
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I think there is a difference.

Saying that those previously convicted for an offence against the law were not guilty because the law was unjust, so they were literally guilty of no crime. Parliament was ruling that the offence wasn't actually a crime. They were retrospectively altering the law, so nobody could have been guilty.

In this case, the intent is to rule that the subpostmasters were innocent of a genuine crime. They are ruling on the facts not the law. Which is supposed to be the role of the courts.

What this does show (yet again) is that the English system is appalling at dealing with clear evidence of miscarriages of justice.


I would prefer the court to examine all the cases in bulk and rule that as the cases that had Horizon evidence were unsafe, all the convictions were quashed.

By all means have parliament legislate for appropriate compensation* and an official apology


ETA, having seen the intervening posts - bulk appeals of all the prosecutions brought by the Post Office and using Horizon evidence


*Which should be for all victims of a miscarriage of justice.
 
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I don't disagree with you in principle, but this is is a case of when asking for directions being told "I wouldn't start from here". Our current justice system cannot cope with this miscarriage of justice in a timely manner, we know this because if it could it would have already dealt with it. So to me this is exactly when "extra-judicial" means are justified. That this is yet more evidence that we do need to change our justice system (E&W) is all well and good but the victims shouldn't have to wait for any such reforms to happen.
 
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