EMERGENCY legislation is to be rushed through parliament exonerating the victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the unprecedented move today as public anger continued to mount over the persecution of innocent postmasters.
The new law will give a blanket acquittal to hundreds of people who were wrongfully convicted of theft or fraud as a result of flawed IT and a subsequent cover-up by bosses.
“This is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history,” Mr Sunak said.
“People who worked hard to serve their communities had their lives and their reputations destroyed through absolutely no fault of their own.
“We will make sure that the truth comes to light, we right the wrongs of the past and the victims get the justice they deserve.”
The government is also offering a £75,000 upfront payment to many of those affected, as a down payment on a larger compensation package.
Post Office Minister Kevin Hollinrake told MPs the evidence showed that the Post Office hierarchy had been guilty of “not only incompetence, but malevolence in many of their actions” in the course of the scandal.
The new law being rushed into the statute book follows tense talks with the judiciary, concerned at the precedent of Parliament over-ruling court decisions.
However, government ministers have noted the huge scale of the miscarriage of justice involved.
Going through conventional procedures for referring cases back to the Court of Appeal could have meant some postmasters waiting up to 15 years for justice, so slow is Britain’s underfunded justice system.
The plans, certain to be backed by Labour, could lead to all wrongful convictions being overturned this year.
With public anger mounting, Tory so-called “common sense” minister Esther McVey announced on GB News, where she is a presenter, that postmaster Alan Bates, who led a 20-year campaign for justice, should now receive a knighthood. Her suggestion was backed by No 10 and the Labour Party.
The only direct impact so far for those responsible has been a pressured decision by former Post Office boss Paula Vennells to return her CBE, with little indication that any other consequences will be forthcoming.
Other heads may yet roll however. Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, who was Post Office minister during the Con-Dem coalition government, is under particular pressure.
Mr Davey refused to meet Mr Bates during his tenure and Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson used Prime Minister’s Questions today, with Mr Davey conspicuously absent, to suggest that he should “clear his desk, clear his diary and clear off.”
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said that the “sub-postmasters never stood a chance against the Westminster Establishment,” fingering Mr Davey, Tony Blair and David Cameron as pillars of the elite throughout.
Pressure is also building on tech giant Fujitsu, which supplied the faulty Post Office IT system.
It continues to secure government IT contracts and there are fears the firm is effectively “too big to sack or sue.”
Top engineer on the project Gareth Jenkins has reportedly been unwilling to appear before the public inquiry into the scandal without being given immunity from any charges arising out of his evidence.
This is all of a piece with the conduct of Ms Vennells who, according to her sometime ministerial overseer, Tory MP George Freeman, refused to meet him without the presence of her lawyer.
