The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) is attempting to contact any former subpostmasters that could have been prosecuted for unexplained losses on the Post Office’s pre-Horizon Capture software.
There are former subpostmasters that, like Horizon users, could have been convicted of crimes based on data from these systems.
Since the Post Office Horizon scandal hit the mainstream in January 2024 – revealing to a wide audience the suffering experienced by subpostmasters who were blamed for errors in the Horizon accounting system – users of Post Office software that predated Horizon have come forward, supported by campaigning peer Kevan Jones, to tell their stories, which echoed those of victims of the Horizon scandal.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission for England and Wales is now reviewing 21 cases of potential wrongful conviction, put forward by law firm Hudgell Solicitors, where the Capture IT system could be a factor.
Capture was a PC-based application developed by the Post Office and uploaded onto a personal computer to carry out branch accounts.
The software was a standalone system, unlike Horizon, which is a complex, networked system connected to centralised services (see below for timeline of Capture developments since January 2024).
The SCCRC is now calling on people that might have been convicted based on Capture accounts to come forward. “The commission encourages anyone who believes that their criminal conviction, or that of a relative, might have been affected by the Capture system to make contact with it,” it said.
Third system
The statutory body is also investigating a third Post Office system, known as Ecco+, which was also error-prone. It was thought this system was only used in Crown branches (directly managed by the Post Office) and Crown branches that were taken over by subpostmasters. But Computer Weekly has discovered that Ecco+ could actually be bought by subpostmasters for use in their branches.
“We are currently investigating possible miscarriages of justice relating to problems with various computer systems used in Post Office branches in the 1990s (Capture, Ecco+),” the SCCRC said.
Read the SCCRC’s related information sheet.
In May 2024, Scottish Parliament announced its own legislation to exonerate subpostmasters with convictions based on evidence from the Horizon system.
This followed a similar law introduced for England and Wales in March last year that saw over 700 former subpostmasters exonerated.
A total of 64 former subpostmasters in Scotland have now had their convictions overturned through the legislation brought through Scottish Parliament.
So far, 97 convicted subpostmasters have come forward, and 86 have been assessed, out of which the 64 have been overturned. However, 22 have been rejected and another 11 are still to be assessed.
An independent group, fronted by a former Scottish subpostmaster, is also calling on users of any of the Post Office systems to come forward to tell their stories, and for support in seeking justice and redress.
The Scottish Postmasters for Justice and Redress, as the group is known, will officially launch tomorrow at Scottish Parliament. It was set up by Rab Thomson, a former subpostmaster of a branch near Alloa, who had a wrongful theft conviction overturned last year.
The group has the support of former Scottish Nationalist Party MP Marion Fellows, who was chair of the All-Party Post Office Parliamentary Group, and Calum Greenhow, the current CEO of the National Federation of Subpostmasters.
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