LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd April, 2021) UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed on Friday a decision by the UK Court of Appeals to overturn the convictions of 39 postmasters that had been accused by the postal service of stealing money and false accounting because of a faulty computer system.
"I welcome the Court of Appeal's decision to overturn the convictions of 39 former sub-postmasters in the Horizon dispute, an appalling injustice which has had a devastating impact on these families for years. Lessons should and will be learnt to ensure this never happens again," Johnson wrote on Twitter.
The case dates back to 2000, when the UK Post Office began prosecuting hundreds of people running local post offices after a bug in the computer system Horizon that had been installed a year earlier led to financial shortfalls in branch accounts.
Although the defendants always maintained that the fault was in the computer system, 39 of them were convicted and some of them were even sent to prison for crimes they never committed.
