The Government’s Bill to clear sub-postmasters convicted under the Horizon scandal completed its second reading in the House of Commons today.
With cross party support the piece of legislation will exonerate all those convicted of fraud and false accounting in the Magistrates Court and Crown Court.
This is an unusual act of Parliament in that it interferes with the decisions taken by the judiciary. In Parliament Andy raised his concerns that there are some former employees of the post office who weren’t prosecuted but did suffer loss and they too should be compensated.
He said:
I’m very clear that this bill is about correction convictions that were made in error.
But there are, of course, a number of employees, direct employees that worked for the post office that were never convicted but had their good name ruined, their careers destroyed.
And have found it very , very difficult to gain employment because they were unable to get references from their previous employer.
And indeed probably the worst thing that happened to them is that in their communities they’ve been identified as people that were perhaps stealing from pensioners or treating members of their community unfairly.
This bill will do nothing for them.
