Sub-postmasters wrongly convicted of fraud in the Post Office scandal will be cleared under new legislation to be introduced in July, the government announced today.
Post Office Minister Kevin Hollinrake admitted that the legislation was likely to exonerate several guilty people.
He added, however, that "the government accepts that this is a price worth paying in order to ensure that many innocent people are exonerated".
More than 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted for theft between 1999 and 2015 after a new computer system known as Horizon inaccurately calculated cash balances they held.
The scandal, which has been ongoing for twenty years, was brought to front and centre this year in a television programme ‘Mr Bates vs the Post Office’, which sparked a public outcry about how the sub-postmasters had been treated.
In a statement, Hollinrake said the new legislation would overturn all relevant convictions from the Post Office and CPS, but not from the Department of Work and Pensions.
Relevant offences primarily means theft and false accounting, he said. The new law will also apply only to sub-postmasters and their employees or family members.
Offences also needed to take place in a Post Office that was using the Horizon system software and at a time that the software or a pilot scheme was in operation.
The Horizon scandal, which unfolded over the past two decades, involved the wrongful conviction of more than 900 Post Office branch managers.
They were accused of theft and false accounting due to discrepancies caused by faults in the Horizon software, a system introduced across the UK in 1999 for managing transactions and accounts.
In January, software developer Fujitsu confirmed its intention to compensate victims of the scandal following mounting pressure and public scrutiny.