Hundreds of UK postal workers wrongly accused of fraud will have their convictions overturned

Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says he will introduce measures to overturn the convictions of more than 700 post office branch managers who were wrongly accused of theft or fraud because of a faulty computer system

LONDON -- Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Wednesday he will introduce measures to overturn the convictions of more than 700 post office branch managers who were wrongly accused of theft or fraud because of a faulty computer system.

The scandal, which saw hundreds of postmasters falsely convicted of stealing money because Post Office computers wrongly showed that funds were missing from their shops, is thought to be the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history.

Of the more than 700 postal branch managers who were convicted of theft or fraud between 1999 and 2015, just 93 have managed to overturn their convictions. Some were sent to prison, and many were financially ruined after being forced to pay large sums to the state-owned Post Office. Several killed themselves.

The real culprit was a defective accounting software package called Horizon, which was supplied by the Japanese technology firm Fujitsu.

Sunak told lawmakers that a new law will be introduced to ensure that those wrongly convicted are “swiftly exonerated and compensated.”