A former sub-postmistress who was wrongly jailed while she was pregnant has rejected an apology by a former Post Office boss who congratulated the team behind her conviction.

"Brilliant news. Well done," wrote then managing director David Smith in an email to colleagues in 2010.

Seema Misra was eight weeks pregnant with her second child when she was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

Mr Smith apologised to Mrs Misra at the inquiry into the Post Office scandal.

He said that in hindsight, his email following her conviction was "poorly thought through".

But following Thursday's evidence, Mrs Misra told the BBC: "How can I accept the apology? They need to apologise to my 10 year old, they took his mum away on his birthday.

"I was eight weeks pregnant - they need to apologise to my youngest son. It was terrible. I haven't accepted the apologies."

Mrs Misra was sent to Bronzefield prison on the day of her eldest son's 10th birthday after being wrongly convicted of stealing £70,000 from her Post Office branch in the village of West Byfleet in Surrey.

She served four-and-a-half months and gave birth to her second son wearing an electronic tag.

She told the BBC that she had seen Mr Smith's email before. "Seeing it again makes me more and more angry," she added.

Mrs Misra was one of more than 700 sub-postmasters and postmistresses prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 for theft and false accounting after a faulty computer system called Horizon made it look like money was missing from their branches.

Some, like Mrs Misra, were convicted and sent to prison. Many others were left financially ruined and lost their jobs, businesses and homes. Some died while waiting for justice.

Hundreds of people wrongly convicted are set to have their names cleared under new legislation expected to come into force in July, but when it comes to financial redress, just 37 people have received full and final compensation settlements to date.

Mr Smith was managing director of the Post Office from April to October 2010. His brief stint in charge was prior to Paula Vennells - who was heavily depicted in the ITV drama which thrust the scandal back into the spotlight - taking up the role as chief executive from 2012 to 2019.

In his witness statement to the public inquiry, Mr Smith said his email following Mrs Misra's conviction was "intended to be a congratulatory" to the legal team.

"Brilliant news. Well done. Please pass on my thanks to the team," said Mr Smith's 2010 email.

Asked by Sam Stevens, counsel to the inquiry, on Thursday why Mrs Misra's conviction was "brilliant news", Mr Smith replied: "I would just like to place on record an apology to Seema Misra and family because of the way this has been perceived and portrayed subsequently.

"Looking at it through their eyes rather than through mine you can see that it may have caused substantial upset and I really do apologise for that."

Mr Smith said his email to the legal team was "thank you for all your hard work. It's terrific that you got the result you got and I'm really happy that we have progressed".

"It's nothing more or less than that," he added, but admitted: "In the benefit of hindsight and looking through the 2024 lens and not the 2010 lens, at best, from Seema's perspective, you can see this is really poorly thought through."

'Tamper proof'

The former managing director said Mrs Misra's conviction, which has since been overturned, was seen as a "test" of the Horizon system, which the organisation believed was "tamper proof".

Mr Smith denied having knowledge of a Horizon bug before the trial of the subpostmistress in 2010, and said he was "shocked and frankly appalled" at claims the Post Office knew of faults in the IT system while prosecuting Mrs Misra.

Mr Smith also rejected claims that an investigation commissioned - known as the Ismay report - into the computer system's integrity was a cover up.

The essence of the report, produced by Rod Ismay who worked in finance at the Post Office in 2010, was that there were no fundamental problems with Horizon.

In May last year, Mr Ismay told the inquiry he agreed with the suggestion he was asked to "present one side of the coin", rather than carry out a full investigation.

Mr Smith denied the report was intended as a "counter-argument" to allegations against Horizon, but accepted in his witness statement that in hindsight he should have commissioned a full, independent probe.

"At the time we were repeatedly given reassurance that the system was robust," said Mr Smith.

Former Post Office chairman Sir Michael Hodgkinson also apologised to sub-postmasters on Thursday.

Sir Michael, who was chairman from 2003 to 2007 admitted to the inquiry he "didn't do anything" to check if the business was prosecuting its own people properly.

Source:
courtesy of BBC NEWS

by Michael Race

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