‘The Post Office Horizon scandal needs
making right but this is not the way’

The prime minister has said new legislation will be introduced so people wrongly convicted in the Post Office Horizon scandal are ‘swiftly exonerated and compensated’.

There’s no denying that readers want to see the victims of the Horizon scandal receive the justice they deserve. But, as one reader in today’s MetroTalk points out, doesn’t clearing their names via an act of parliament go against the separation of powers?

Meanwhile, if young people can be influenced in favour of the EU, were older voters influenced towards voting Brexit?

Read on to see what readers think about this issue, among others.

Why did the Post Office choose to privately prosecute?

The monies paid by the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses as they tried to make up non-existent losses reported by the faulty Horizon software went somewhere – where? Who benefited? That money needs returning to the people involved when the compensation is paid. Paddy Cawkwell, Doncaster

The Post Office used private prosecutions to punish the innocent sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses.

The chief advantage being that control of cases would be virtually 100 per cent in the Post Office’s favour, mainly because opposition to the PO and its almost bottomless budget would be beyond most defendants’ budget. And remember, some of them had already been bankrupted.

Private prosecutions also suited the company’s machinations very well. They could plea bargain, for instance and easily apply so-called ‘gagging orders’.

Those calling for the PO to be denied future private prosecutions don’t seem to realise they are not just a prerogative of big organisations. Anybody with a few quid can do it.

Famously, the parents of racist murder victim Stephen Lawrence launched a private prosecution against Gary Dobson, Luke Knight and Neil Acourt. The rules are different to those conducted by the Crown Prosecution Service, not least because the burden of proof is generally less.

What is actually required is for businesses to be given no more credibility than individuals.

Maybe an independent vetting of cases might be in order. But it has to be borne in mind that ‘weak’ cases can be perfectly right and proper and should get their day in court.

In this case, it seems the juries were unaware that there was an unprecedented increase in such prosecutions and took an attitude of thinking the PO could not be wrong or the Horizon system be faulty. Col Blake, Ealing

How to make sure everyone gets the justice they deserve

Nearly all sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses made good on all sorts of discrepancies with their own money.

The only way to get justice for everyone affected is for every Horizon transaction correction that has ever come through and been settled to cash or cheque between 1999 and 2015 to be paid back
to the relevant sub-postmaster and sub-postmistress.

It seems impossible for the Post Office to prove what was a glitch and what was not while it used the faulty Horizon system. Cllr Alastair Redman, Kintyre And The Islands Ward, Former Sub Postmaster For 12 Years On The Island Of Islay

Are we likely to find out how negligent Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey was in not pursuing the Post Office Scandal when he was postal minister?

I think several people could have made a big difference to the outcome had they bothered to stir things up. The evidence was there for the discovering. Molly Neville, Sheffield

I knew that the Post Office senior management culture was malign but even I didn’t imagine that they had in place a system to pay bonuses to the investigators for every internal conviction. Robert Boston, Kingshill

Did older voters fall for barrage from Nigel Farage and friends?

Robert Kay of Leeds (MetroTalk, Wed) claims that young people were brainwashed into not voting for Brexit by ‘neo-liberals who have hijacked schools colleges and universities’.

Of course, Mr Kay wasn’t brainwashed by the xenophobic lies peddled by Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and others…

By the way, I’m aged 69 and feel sorry for the young people lumbered with the mess dumped on them by the wrinkly old bigots who voted for Brexit. David Flett, London

I chose to leave the EU because I felt our governments, good and bad as they are, were just as good as Emmanuel Macron’s in France or (at the time) Angela Merkel’s in Germany.

I felt that we should not be overshadowed by the likes of them. It has nothing to do with our ‘colonial past’ as suggested by Tom and Simon (MetroTalk, Thu). The sooner young people ‘let go of the past’, the better. Denise, London

I expected a robust response to Robert’s claim young people ‘loathed’ Britain but did not expect three comments (MetroTalk, Thu) displaying signs of his very point.

One claimed Brexit had rendered the UK isolated, another that our geopolitical position in the world was now insignificant, and the third that ‘Britain terrorised and exploited most of the world for centuries’.

We are not isolated, or insignificant, our influence across the globe is still huge and, as demonstrated by the number of countries in the Commonwealth, we are still a widely respected country. HG, Maidstone

It’s blooming marvellous…

Spring is around the corner and – as my photo shows – with that, flowers have begun to bloom, trees have sprung and the British wildlife are back in our parks and gardens after a long, soggy winter. Molly Cottee Tantum, via email

What are your thoughts? Have your say in the comments belowComment Now

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