Seema Misra, now 47, had her conviction quashed in April 2021.
London:
An Indian-origin former supervisor of a Put up Workplace in England wrongly jailed whereas pregnant has rejected the apology of a former boss of the government-owned entity throughout an ongoing public inquiry into the accounting scandal.
Seema Misra, now 47, had her conviction quashed in April 2021 because the Court docket of Enchantment dominated that she had been wrongly imprisoned over 12 years in the past after being accused of stealing GBP 75,000 from her Put up Workplace department in Surrey the place she was the sub-postmistress.
Throughout Thursday’s hearings for the Put up Workplace Horizon IT inquiry in London, former Put up Workplace Managing Director David Smith apologised for a congratulatory e-mail he despatched after Ms Misra’s conviction.
“It was meant to be a congratulatory e-mail to the staff, realizing that that they had labored onerous on the case,” Mr Smith mentioned in his written proof to the inquiry.
“Nonetheless, realizing what I do now, it’s evident that my e-mail would have brought on Seema Misra and her household substantial misery to learn and I wish to apologise for that… Even when this had been an accurate conviction, I might by no means suppose that it was ‘good information’ for a pregnant girl to go to jail and I’m massively apologetic that my e-mail may be learn as such,” he mentioned.
“Nonetheless, seeing this e-mail within the mild of what I do know now, I perceive the anger and the upset that it’s going to have brought on and sincerely apologise for that,” he added.
However, chatting with reporters later, Ms Misra rejected the apology which comes a few years after her ordeal.
“I used to be eight weeks pregnant – they should apologise to my youngest son. It was horrible. I have never accepted the apologies,” Ms Misra informed the BBC.
“We had my conviction overturned, no one got here at the moment to apologise. And now they only all of a sudden realised that once they have to seem in a public inquiry, they should apologise,” she mentioned.
Ms Misra was despatched to Bronzefield jail in south-east England and served four-and-a-half months, later giving delivery to her second son carrying an digital tag.
Mr Smith informed the inquiry that Ms Misra had been used as a “check case” and the success of the case led to extra confidence within the defective Horizon IT accounting system.
“How can they do a check on a human being? I am a residing creature. I heard that my case had been used as a check case earlier than. However listening to it time and again, it is simply annoying. It makes me increasingly indignant, to be trustworthy,” Ms Misra informed ‘Sky Information’ regarding his proof.
The UK authorities, which formally owns Put up Workplace Ltd, has paid out thousands and thousands in compensation to tons of of sub-postmasters – a lot of them of Indian heritage – impacted by the defective Horizon software program.
Earlier this 12 months, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged motion within the historic scandal which wrongly accused sub-postmasters of fraud.
Final month, a brand new regulation tabled in Parliament launched the Put up Workplace (Horizon System) Offences Invoice, a blanket exoneration to quash convictions led to by misguided Horizon proof. A public inquiry within the case, underway in a phased method, is predicted to conclude in July.
The controversial Horizon system, developed by the Japanese firm Fujitsu, was first rolled out in 1999 to some publish places of work for variable duties, together with accounting and stocktaking. Nonetheless, it appeared to have vital bugs, which might trigger the system to misreport, typically involving massive sums as within the case of those sub-postmasters.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
