Post Office scandal: Calls for mass exonerations as cases hinge on ‘one single lie’

MPs plan to raise the Horizon scandal in the Commons as parliament returns today amid growing anger over the wrongful prosecution of subpostmasters and postmistresses for alleged fraud.

Conservative backbencher David Davis and Labour MP Kevan Jones are pushing for an emergency debate after an ITV drama returned the widespread miscarriage of justice to the spotlight.

Former Tory minister Mr Davis stressed it was down to Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle to grant urgent questions from MPs but he believed there was “no doubt” the issue would come up in the chamber in the coming days.

“This is such a big issue. There are now tens of millions of people who care about this, and care about it a lot,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“It did take a docudrama in this case I’m afraid, and many of us have been struggling for a long while to try and elevate it.”

Mr Davis also said he could see “no logical reason” why there couldn’t be a mass appeal for all those wrongly convicted given that all of the cases “depend on one single lie”.

Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives face “obliteration” at the general election, a senior Tory MP has said in comments leaked from a private event.

Danny Kruger, a leading backbencher and founder of the increasingly influential New Conservatives group, made the remarks at an event held by the ResPublica think tank last year, The Guardian reports.

He said: “The narrative that the public has now firmly adopted – that over 13 years things have got worse – is one we just have to acknowledge and admit.

“I’m afraid, if we leave office next year, we would have left the country sadder, less united and less conservative than when we found it.”

Mr Kruger did not deny making the comments.

Rishi Sunak has been forced to defend his flagship Rwanda plan after leaked documents suggested he harboured significant doubts about the controversial scheme – and argued for it to be scaled back.

The prime minister said it had been his job when chancellor to scrutinise “every proposal” that involved spending taxpayers’ money.

Ministers should be “careful” about quashing the convictions of sub-postmasters in case “that one person” has committed a crime, one of the victims of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal has said.

Tracy Felstead told BBC Breakfast: “I think we need to be really careful that we’re not just going to go and turn everybody’s convictions over just in case you have that one person that has committed a crime and you have just turned over their conviction.

“I think we have to be careful with what we are doing.”

The former Post Office boss who was in charge during the Horizon scandal should “give back” her CBE, a Labour frontbencher has said.

Steve Reed, the shadow environment secretary, said: “In terms of the honour that the former head of the Post Office received… well, speaking for myself personally here, I do think she should give that back,” he told TalkTV.

“It’s an insult to the sub-postmasters who suffered from what her leadership delivered that she should accept that honour.”

Mr Bone’s constituents used a recall petition to kick him out of parliament in December, after he was found to have indecently exposed himself to a staff member and trapped him in the bathroom of a hotel room.

The Post Office should be stripped of its role in deciding on compensation for those who were wrongly prosecuted because of flaws in its Horizon IT system, a member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board has said.

Professor Richard Moorhead, of the University of Exeter, said an independent body which may be able to take over that role already exists.

He told Times Radio: “We certainly think it is a bad idea that the Post Office has such a role in the compensation scheme.

“It obviously paints the wrong picture to the subpostmasters. We need a scheme which is, as fully as possible, independent from the Post Office.

“That could be done relatively straightforwardly. One of the compensation schemes is independent of the Post Office.

“It might be possible to move the cases across to there.”

A petition calling for former Post Office boss Paula Vennells to lose her CBE over the Horizon scandal has attracted more than one million signatures.

Demands for the Honours Forfeiture Committee to remove her CBE have emerged again after ITV aired a new drama into the scandal, which has been described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history.

Treasury minister Bim Afolami said the government is working “incredibly hard” to make sure that justice is done “as quickly as possible” for postmasters wrongly convicted in the Horizon scandal.

“We are working incredibly hard to make sure that as quickly as possible justice is done, because I was as appalled as everybody else in the country was when I heard about this scandal,” he told LBC.

Mr Afolami said Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, who served for a period as postal affairs minister in the coalition government, should “be honest with people” and explain why as a minister “he didn’t ask the right questions”.

Asked whether Sir Ed should consider his position, he said: “To be honest, I’m not one who goes around saying that (someone) needs to resign, but I do think he needs to do is he needs to be honest with people and explain why as a minister, he didn’t ask the right questions.”