Ministers introduce bill to acquit victims of Horizon scandal

Ministers have introduced legislation to quash the convictions of hundreds of post office operators who were prosecuted during the Horizon scandal.

- Eleni Courea

The government introduced a bill in parliament yesterday afternoon that will exonerate victims of the scandal in England and Wales.

The bill, which is unprecedented in its nature, will overturn convictions of theft, fraud, false accounting, money laundering and linked offences that were handed down in connection with Post Office business over more than a decade by the Post Office and the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales between 23 September 1996 and 31 December 2018.

Convictions will be quashed automatically once the bill becomes law, vindicating hundreds of victims who have campaigned for years in what has been described as the largest miscarriage of justice in British history.

More than 900 convictions have been linked to the scandal, which involved post office operators being falsely prosecuted after a faulty computer system, Horizon, made it look as if money was missing.