The legislation announced yesterday by the Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake contains an obvious and fundamental flaw. Although it will clear hundreds of people who were wrongly convicted, nobody will know who they are.
That’s fine for those who don’t want anyone to know that they were ever found guilty in the first place. But it’s a problem for people who want to show that their convictions have now been quashed.
Although Hollinrake answered oral questions on the Horizon scandal yesterday morning, he announced the legislation in a written statement yesterday afternoon. That meant he could not be questioned on it.
The new law, he explained, “will quash all convictions which are identified as being in scope”. That means they must satisfy at least five criteria. In summary:
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They must have resulted from prosecutions by the Post Office or the Crown Prosecution Service
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The offence must have taken place within a specified timeframe
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The offence must be one such as theft or false accounting
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The convicted person must have worked for the Post Office
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The convicted person must have worked at a Post Office that was using Horizon software at the time
Hollinrake then said this:
It is intended that the convictions in scope of this legislation will be quashed at the point of commencement.
That means the people who meet the criteria in the statute will be cleared automatically as soon as it is brought into effect.
I had thought that a minister would sign an order identifying the people whose convictions were to be quashed. But that seems to have been regarded too difficult, presumably because the Post Office no longer has records of everyone it has prosecuted.
Consequences
Let’s imagine a former postmaster is seeking a job that is not open to those who have committed crimes of dishonesty. A criminal records check discloses a conviction for false accounting. Ah, says the former postmaster, my conviction was quashed by the Post Office (Exoneration) Act 2024.
Prove it, says the would-be employer. How do I know which Post Office you worked at and how do I know it used Horizon software at the time? How do I know you were a family member of a postmaster? Why isn’t your name on a list?
Look, says the former postmaster — I was awarded compensation.
That doesn’t prove anything, says the employer. Financial redress is “outside the legislation”. Sure, you’ve signed a statement saying you didn’t commit the crime of which you were originally convicted. And sure you might be prosecuted for fraud if it can be shown you lied. But would you really worry about that if you had behaved dishonestly in the first place?
Clearing guilty people, said Hollinrake, “is a price worth paying in order to ensure that many innocent people are exonerated”. Maybe. But if a conviction falls in the metaphorical forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?