The Ministry of Justice has set up a team to review all of the convictions that took place in relation to the Horizon Computer System scandal.
In the first instance, the Ministry of Justice will be writing to those people whose convictions they have assessed as being covered by the new legislation and whose convictions have been quashed as a result of the new Act.
If you have any questions about this you may wish to contact the Ministry of Justice Team at: postofficeconvictions@justice.gov.uk
If your conviction is not covered by the Act and your conviction is not quashed as a result, and if you believe that you have been wrongly convicted because of problems with the Horizon computer system and/or problems with the investigation and prosecution by Post Office Limited more generally, you can still consider challenging your conviction.
Of particular note is that where permission to appeal has been refused in respect of a conviction or where an appeal has been dismissed by the Court of Appeal, that conviction will not be quashed by the new legislation.
The Act does not prevent a person whose conviction is not quashed by the Act from making an appeal or applying to the CCRC even where their case has already been considered by the Court of Appeal.
The story to date
The ‘Post Office Horizon’ scandal is the most widespread miscarriage of justice the CCRC has ever seen. It relates to wrongful prosecutions of former sub-postmasters, managers of counter assistants that were reliant on the flawed computer accounting system ‘Horizon’.
This resulted in people being convicted of (or pleading guilty to) offences they did not commit including theft, fraud and false accounting.
Since April 2021 the appeal courts have overturned convictions in 109 Post Office Horizon cases. In each of the cases the court decided that it had been unfair to prosecute the individual because there were serious defects in the Post Office’s Horizon computer system.
As of May 2024, we have referred 77 such applications back to the courts on the basis that we believe there is a real possibility they will overturn the conviction.
In May 2024, new legislation came into effect to quash convictions related to the Horizon scandal. This is being managed by the Ministry of Justice who will write to those people affected and whose convictions will be quashed by the new legislation.
How to start your application
If your conviction has not been quashed by the new legislation you may still want to appeal to the courts or apply to the CCRC to review your conviction.
If you want to apply to the CCRC to review your conviction:
- Ring the CCRC helpline on 0300 456 2669 if you have any questions – our team is ready to help you
- Complete the CCRC’s application form
Court of Appeal judgements
Three key Court of Appeal judgements have been handed down in the Post Office Horizon cases.
These are Robert Ambrose and Others v Post Office Ltd on October 7 2021, Josephine Hamilton and Others v Post Office Ltd on 23 April 2021 and Margaret White and David Cameron v Post Office Ltd on 31 March 2022.