The government will offer compensation to Post Office Capture victims – while refusing to rule out blanket exoneration for those convicted.
In an exclusive interview with Sky News, Post Office minister Gareth Thomas said his department is “working at pace” and is committed to providing redress as quickly as possible.
Capture accounting software, which predates the scandal-hit Horizon IT system, was used by sub-postmasters in their branches between 1992 and 1999.
Under Horizon, hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015.
Earlier this year the government-commissioned Kroll report found there was a “reasonable likelihood” that Capture caused accounting losses and errors, although the report did not make any conclusions about the safety of criminal convictions.
A number of sub-postmasters were convicted of theft and false accounting while using the Capture IT system in the 1990s.
“This is the first time the government has confirmed it is going to offer redress,” Gareth Thomas told Sky News.
“We recognise that there were significant problems for some sub-postmasters, at least some of whom used the Capture software, and had real difficulties in their branches.
“We’re now going to work at pace across government, and with the Post Office and sub-postmasters directly, to try to understand how many people were affected and how we can offer redress most effectively going forward.”
He insisted that once as much information as possible had been received from the Post Office the government would “be able to work through on a [redress] scheme”.
When asked repeatedly, however, if “blanket exoneration” was off the table, Mr Thomas refused to directly answer.
He said instead that the “first stage” was to “work with the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC)”.
Mr Thomas added: “It’s the reason why we’ve asked the Post Office to go through all its records just to try and help us understand firstly how many people were affected in total by using Capture software, how many people saw problems in their branch, and also to try to understand how many people were then convicted.”
“That’s got to be the first stage,” he continued. “We’re working at pace and expect the Post Office to be working at a pace to make those judgements.
“And we will get that information to CCRC as soon as we can – and we’ll make a judgement from that.”
Hundreds of sub-postmasters who were wrongly convicted of stealing because of faults in the Horizon system, introduced after Capture, were exonerated through legislation earlier this year.
Sky News has previously revealed that the CCRC is looking into a number of Capture cases but said that the older the case, the more difficult it could be to determine.
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Mr Thomas admitted he was also “worried about the level of information” available “given the length of time since Capture was used”.
He emphasised the Post Office had been instructed “as a matter of urgency” to look into its records and pass on as much information as possible.
The minister also insisted that the government has “a responsibility to work as fast as we can… and we are determined to do that”.
On potential redress schemes, the minister also said the government has learned from past mistakes on compensation.
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Mr Thomas said some Horizon sub-postmasters had not been involved “early enough” in the process previously.
“That’s certainly something we don’t want to happen this time round,” he said.
“I’m now actively talking to sub-postmasters and legal representatives so that we can get redress offered ultimately as quickly as is feasible.”
