Scottish Government to bring in 'emergency' bill to quash Post Office Horizon scandal convictions

The Scottish Government will rush through emergency legislation next week to exonerate subpostmasters wrongfully convicted in the Post Office Horizon scandal.

It follows a huge row between minister in Edinburgh and London. The Scottish Government had asked for the UK Government to extend its bill north of the border.

But Westminster refused to do so because justice is devolved and prosecutions were undertaken under a different system. An estimated 100 Post Office workers in Scotland were wrongly prosecuted after they were blamed for shortfalls in their accounts caused by a faulty IT system.

If the the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences (Scotland) Bill is passed by MSPs, those whose convictions are quashed will then be able to access the UK Government financial redress scheme.

The Bill’s passage through the Scottish Parliament will be sped up to allow for quicker justice.

The Stage 1 debate and vote on the general principles of the Bill is expected to take place in the Scottish Parliament next Tuesday, with Stage 2 amendments being considered on Wednesday.

But the final stages cannot be debated or voted on until the UK Government's Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill makes it way through Westminster.

Keith Macaldowie, 51, from Greenock, not convicted but lost £15,000 and his business.

He said: "The Scottish Government has been forced into it.

"I was in Westminster recently to convince the UK Government to include Scotland in the Westminster bill.

"It is a Westminster problem as they are the sole shareholders of the Post Office.

"To get legislation through in Holyrood we have to mirror what Westminster is doing.

"The Scottish Government is doing its best, but it needs to wait until it goes through Westminster first.

"This means the Scottish subpostmasters will have to wait even longer.

"They are being penalised."

SNP Justice Secretary Angela Constance said: “Innocent sub-postmasters had their lives ruined by being wrongly convicted of offences of dishonesty on the evidence of the faulty Post Office Horizon system.

"The quickest, easiest route to overturn these miscarriages of justice would have been for the UK Government to extend their Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill to cover sub-postmasters in Scotland.

"However, our repeated requests for this were refused. Our Bill, therefore, mirrors that of UK legislation to ensure parity for affected sub-postmasters in Scotland with those elsewhere in the UK and to ensure access to the UK Government’s compensation scheme.

“The scale of the scandal and the length of time that the victims have waited for justice means we are taking an unprecedented step of introducing legislation to right this terrible wrong and asking Parliament for it to be processed as an emergency Bill.

"The Scottish Government will not do anything to jeopardise equality and parity for victims, so the final stage of the Bill cannot be considered in the Scottish Parliament until after the UK legislation has been passed.

"This will ensure that MSPs can take account of any amendments made to the UK Bill.”

The UK Government has already brought forward legislation that will give those wrongly convicted the option to settle for £600,000 without the need to bring a formal claim.

But this Bill will not apply to Scotland as prosecutions linked to the Horizon scandal were brought by the Crown Office.

Constance has lobbied without success for the Westminster legislation to be extended to cover north of the border.

UK Enterprise minister Kevin Hollinrake said it was more appropriate for Holyrood to legislate, given the separate legal system.

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