The Government has “officially recognised” victims of second IT scandal at the Post Office and pledged to set up a new compensation scheme by spring 2025.
It follows months of reporting by The i Paper on Capture, the IT system rolled out to thousands of Post Office branches between 1992 and 1999.
The accounting system was prone to bugs and glitches which caused losses for sub-postmasters when trying to balance their books.
And in a precursor to the Horizon scandal, victims were forced to hand over cash, sacked and in some cases criminally prosecuted over the alleged losses.
The Government ordered an independent investigation into Capture to be carried out by US firm Kroll earlier this year. It concluded that sub-postmasters were likely to have suffered unexplained accounting losses.
Now ministers have promised to provide “redress”, stating that they will work “swiftly with victims to determine its form and scope, alongside eligibility criteria, by Spring 2025”.
But sub-postmasters with criminal convictions will not have them overturned en masse via Parliamentary legislation, as happened with Horizon cases earlier this year.
Instead, the Government wants the Criminal Cases Review Commission [CCRC] to take Capture cases to the Court of Appeal as soon as possible.
The move will disappoint campaigners who say the process is likely to take several years and will be made difficult by the fact there is very little evidence preserved for cases which date back as much as 30 years.
The Government says it has ordered the Post Office to “urgently review its files and evidence so the CCRC and SCCRC [Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission] can ensure no one was wrongfully convicted of a Horizon-style injustice. ”
It said that the Post Office has “indicated it holds further information on convictions and prosecutions during the Capture period”.
An investigation by The i Paper, published in September, revealed how private prosecutions carried out by the Post Office soared following the introduction of Capture in 1992.
Figures released via a Freedom of Information request show the Post Office carried out more than 200 prosecutions in just three years.
Revealed: Hundreds of Post Office prosecutions may be linked to second faulty IT system
Read MoreBusiness and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “It is thanks to testimony of postmasters that this has been brought to light and failings have been discovered.
“We must now work quickly to provide redress and justice to those who have suffered greatly after being wrongly accused.
“I’d like to encourage anyone who believes they have been affected by Capture to share their story with us so we can put wrongs to right once and for all.”
Post Office Minister Gareth Thomas said: “It’s taken a long time to reach this point which is why my priority now is to deliver justice and redress to postmasters as swiftly as possible.
“We will do everything we can to correct the mistakes of the past and ensure they are not repeated.
“Postmasters have raised concerns with me that their income has not kept up with inflation over the past decade.
“The Government therefore welcomes that the Post Office is going to make a one-off payment to postmasters to increase their remuneration.”
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
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