THE Post Office is “not fit to be a specialist reporting agency” after the Horizon scandal and has been stripped of that status in Scotland, MSPs have heard.

Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC has stepped-in to remove the centuries-old investigative powers from the Post Office thought to have played a key role in the miscarriages of justice.

Speaking in Holyrood, Ms Bain — Scotland’s chief prosecutor and legal adviser to the Scottish government — told MSPs: “Because of its fundamental and sustained failures in connection with Horizon cases in Scotland, I’ve decided that Post Office Limited is not fit to be a specialist reporting agency.

“It is therefore no longer able to investigate and report criminal allegations directly to the Crown and it should now instead report any allegations of criminality to Police Scotland for them to investigate.”

In an apparent admission of the procurator fiscal’s own failings, she continued: “It has been suggested with the benefit of hindsight that the Crown should have been more suspicious of the Post Office and should have conducted a review and convictions involving Horizon.

“However, the state of knowledge as it then was is not what we know it to be now.”

A Post Office spokesman said: “We continue to do our utmost to assist the work of other prosecuting authorities, including the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in Scotland.

“We also confirmed to COPFS that Post Office does not wish to retain its status as a specialist reporting agency in Scotland. In cases of suspected criminal activity, Post Office now refers evidence to Police Scotland.”

The process of passing emergency legislation at Holyrood to clear the names of the 54 sub-postmasters so far identified in Scotland as wrongfully convicted began earlier this week.