Post Office 'misled courts', hearing is told

Miss Lisa Busch QC was speaking in the Court of Appeal on behalf of Tracy Felstead, a former post office clerk from Telford, who was jailed for six months in 2001 for allegedly stealing £11,500.

Miss Felstead, now 38, is one of 42 former post office workers seeking to overturn their convictions this week.

Also trying to clear their names are:

• Rubbina Shaheen, 55, from Shrewsbury, jailed for 12 months in 2010 for false accounting

• Former Rugeley sub-postmaster Carl Page, 54, jailed for two years in 2007 for allegedly stealing £94,000

• Neelam Hussain, 32, jailed for 21 months in 2011 for allegedly stealing £21,000 from a branch in West Bromwich.

Miss Busch yesterday told the court that the Post Office continued to mislead the civil courts in a separate group litigation in 2019. The group action, brought by 555 present and former post-office workers, ended with the Post Office paying £57.75 million compensation.

The 42 workers claim they were wrongly blamed for financial shortfalls caused by a glitch with the Post Office’s computer database, known as Horizon.

“Over a 13-year period, the Post Office routinely misled the courts,”said Miss Busch said: “Convictions were not just secured on the back of unreliable data, they actively misled the courts.”

She said Miss Felstead’s conviction rested entirely on evidence from the flawed database.

Circumstantial

“Above and beyond pure circumstantial evidence there is no evidence of any theft taking place at all,” she said.

“The only basis on which the appellants could be and were convicted was on Horizon evidence, which we submit the Post Office was aware of its unreliability, misleading the court.”

Mr Sam Stein QC, for Mrs Shaheen, said the Post Office’s failure to disclose serious problems with Horizon was “the most extensive affront to the justice system in living memory”. The company had “perverted the legal process,” he added.

Mr Brian Altman QC, for the Post Office, said it was known there was “potential” for issues with Horizon. But he said there was no evidence of the Post Office “being reckless with Horizon.”

The Post Office has conceded 39 of the 42 appeals should be allowed, on the basis that “they did not or could not have a fair trial”.

But it is contesting 35 of those 39 cases on a second ground of appeal, which is that the reliability of Horizon data was “essential to (their) prosecution and conviction” and their convictions were therefore “an affront to the public conscience”.

A Post Office spokeswoman said: “We sincerely apologise for historical failings and have taken determined action to address the past, ensure redress for those affected and prevent such events ever happening again.

“It would be inappropriate to comment further whilst there are continuing hearings at the Court of Appeal.”

The hearing before Lord Justice Holroyde, Mr Justice Picken and Mrs Justice Farbey is expected to conclude today or tomorrow, and the court is likely to give its ruling at a later date.