Call for 'full and fair' payouts in Post Office scandal

The head of an inquiry into the Post Office scandal has called for action and law changes to stop issues "blocking full and fair compensation".

Sir Wyn Williams said schemes set up to compensate sub-postmasters wrongly accused of crimes was a "patchwork quilt with some holes in it".

Hundreds of sub-postmasters were convicted due to accounting errors caused by the faulty Horizon IT system.

Sir Wyn has set out recommendations to the government and Post Office.

Between 2000 and 2014, more than 700 Post Office managers were given criminal convictions when faulty accounting software, called Horizon, made it look as though money was missing from their sites.

The cases constitute Britain's most widespread miscarriage of justice and there has been a public inquiry, led by Sir Wyn, which has been examining the treatment of thousands of sub-postmasters and to establish who was to blame for the wrongful prosecutions and why nothing was done to prevent them.

In a report laid before Parliament on Monday, the retired judge said there was no "valid legal reason" why the government and Post Office "cannot give effect to the commitments they which they have made" in providing "full and fair" compensation.

He said if the parties sought to abandon such commitments they should provide a "full detailed justification for such a change of heart".

Sir Wyn warned "no doubt, any such purported justification would be subject to the most anxious scrutiny and, in all probability, withering criticism".

The former High Court judge has long held concerns about the slow progress of compensation for Post Office staff.

He said it had been 16 months since he first started to hear the experiences of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses, which he said "consisted of graphic descriptions of hardship and suffering".

"The effect of the evidence upon me hasn't changed. It hasn't lessened to a degree," he added.

"Many hundreds of people suffered disastrous consequences by reason of the misuse of data from Horizon, and thousands more suffered very significantly."