A newly launched campaign group is calling on former subpostmasters in Scotland to come forward if they were affected by the Post Office’s Horizon scandal.
The group, known as the Scottish Postmasters for Justice and Redress, will be officially launch on 2 April 2025 at the Scottish Parliament by former subpostmaster Rab Thomson, who had a wrongful conviction for theft overturned last year after 22 years.
And it is not just former Horizon users in Scotland being invited to come for support, but also those who used Capture and ECCO+ who may have suffered due to their flaws.
The group has the support of former Scottish Nationalist Party MP Marion Fellows, who was chair of the All-Party Post Office Parliamentary Group (APPG), and Calum Greenhow, the current CEO of the National Federation of Subpostmasters (NFSP). It will offer support to encourage people affected to come forward, including all those that suffered as a result of unexplained losses in their branches.
Thomson, who ran a Post Office near Alloa before his wrongful conviction, said he and his fellow group members want to support subpostmasters making claims. This will not be just for convicted subpostmasters, but for those who have suffered in other ways too, including those who paid money to the Post Office to cover unexplained losses.
Thomson originally set up a WhatsApp group to bring victims together, but trauma makes it difficult for them to come forward and tell their stories, he said, adding: “We managed to get nine people but couldn’t get anyone to talk. They just don’t want to be seen. I totally understand this, and the reason we are setting this up is so we can stand for them in the background. We will do our best for them.”
Former MP Fellows and NFSP CEO Greenhow, along with Thomson, promise to represent victims who want to come forward. Fellows said that she is frustrated with the slow progress in seeking justice and redress for Post Office scandal victims in Scotland.
“The group was set up to offer peer support and encourage people to come forward,” Fellows told Computer Weekly. “There are still subpostmasters who were prosecuted who should come forward, but there are also hundreds who were not prosecuted but had their lives turned over.”
Greenhow added: “Rab Thomson really felt there wasn’t any support groups within Scotland for victims and he wanted to pick that up. We want to make sure that everybody that was affected by the Post Office Horizon, Capture and ECCO+ systems can not only have their reputations restored but also financial redress.”
In May last year, the 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 which saw more than 700 former subpostmasters exonerated.
As the Scottish legal system is different to that in England and Wales, it was not the Post Office that prosecuted but the Procurator Fiscal, the public prosecutor, using evidence from the Post Office.
A total of 64 former subpostmasters in Scotland have now had their convictions overturned through the legislation brought through the Scottish Parliament. So far, 97 convicted subpostmasters have come forward and 86 have been assessed, out of which 64 have been overturned. Some 22 have been rejected and another 11 are still to be assessed.
Scotland’s cabinet secretary for justice and home affairs Angela Constance submitted the legislation, known as The Post Office (Horizon System) Offences (Scotland) Bill, and the Scottish Parliament agreed that the bill should be treated as an emergency at the meeting of the Parliament on 15 May 2024.
Speaking about the launch of Scottish Subpostmasters for Justice and Redress, which will take place 2 April from 12–2pm in Scottish Parliament Room P1.02, Constance said: “I very much welcome this event and the continuing need to raise awareness of the UK government redress schemes for victims of the Post Office miscarriages of justice scandal.
“The Scottish government continues to encourage anyone who considers they suffered an injustice to come forward. There is no time limit under the legislation and the Scottish government will always look into any cases where people give their name as a possible miscarriage of justice case.
“Redress is the responsibility of the UK government, and I am keen everyone who is entitled to it can access it. This event is a reminder of the need to help victims navigate through what has been and remains a traumatic experience, and I pay tribute to the work of all those involved in establishing the Scottish Postmasters for Justice and Redress Group.”
Group members are encouraging interested parties to attend the event.
Computer Weekly first exposed the scandal in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to Horizon accounting software, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history (see below timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal since 2009).
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