Postmasters 'rejoice' as convictions appeal granted
They had been accused of stealing money after the Post Office installed a replacement computing system, with some imprisoned.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission found their prosecutions had been an abuse of process.
Thirty-nine out of 61 cases are to be referred, with the rest still under scrutiny.
Jo Hamilton is one of the people that now has added hope that her conviction might be quashed.
"It's just amazing," she said, "How a few years have I been expecting this moment.
"It's fabulous, the prospect to clear my name and obtain obviate my record ."
Her life was turned inside out after the sub-postmistress was accused by the Post Office of taking £36,000 from the village shop she ran in Hampshire.
After a distressing two-year process, she eventually pleaded guilty to false accounting at Winchester Crown Court so as to flee a more serious charge of theft.
Another former sub-postmistress, Seema Misra, was pregnant together with her second child when she was convicted of theft and sent to jail in 2010. Her case has also been sent to the Court of Appeal.
Ms. Misra said she was "so, so happy" on hearing of the appeal. "No words can do justice to how I feel," she added.
"In Hindi, there's a proverb Satyameva Jayate which suggests 'the truth will always win' and that we were always a robust believer therein ."
Post Office tills that ruined lives 'still faulty'
Jailed Post Office worker: I wanted to kill myself
Helen Pitcher, chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, said: "This is by a long way the most important number of cases we'll ever have referred for appeal at just one occasion.
"Our team possesses an enormous amount of labor, particularly since the judgment in December, so as to spot the grounds on which we are pertaining to these cases."
The finding comes after the Post Office agreed in December to pay almost £58m to settle the long-running dispute with sub-postmasters and postmistresses.
The settlement brought an end to a mammoth series of lawsuits over the Horizon IT system wont to manage local post office finances since 1999.
Ms. Hamilton has had to offer up her shop and located it difficult to urge a replacement job thanks to her record. She made ends meet by doing cleaning jobs for people in her village who didn't believe she was guilty.
"I couldn't get automobile insurance," she said and had to travel to a specialist provider with higher premiums. "I couldn't be left alone with my grand-daughter in her classroom."
A group of postmasters said faults in Horizon led to them wrongly being accused of fraud. The Post Office accepted it had "got things wrong in our dealings with a variety of postmasters" within the past.
Long-running complaint
Ms. Hamilton's fight echoes that of other postmasters seeking justice. She said issues within the Horizon system led to big discrepancies in her accounts, which she reported to her Post Office area manager.
But that manager could find nothing wrong with the system, and she or he was put during a situation where "you had to prove your innocence".
Sub-postmasters run Post Office franchises across the united kingdom, which usually provide some but not all of the services of the most post office.
A group of 550 claimants joined a legal action to win compensation in 2018, but their complaint goes back much further.
They alleged that the Horizon IT system - which was installed between 1999 and 2000 - contained an outsized number of defects.
Some said their lives had been ruined once they have pursued funds that managers claimed were missing. Others, like Seema Misra, even visited jail after being convicted.
In December, the Post Office apologized to the claimants, saying it had been grateful to them "for holding us to account in circumstances where, within the past, we've fallen short."
The Criminal Cases Review Commission found their prosecutions had been an abuse of process.
Thirty-nine out of 61 cases are to be referred, with the rest still under scrutiny.
Jo Hamilton is one of the people that now has added hope that her conviction might be quashed.
"It's just amazing," she said, "How a few years have I been expecting this moment.
"It's fabulous, the prospect to clear my name and obtain obviate my record ."
Her life was turned inside out after the sub-postmistress was accused by the Post Office of taking £36,000 from the village shop she ran in Hampshire.
After a distressing two-year process, she eventually pleaded guilty to false accounting at Winchester Crown Court so as to flee a more serious charge of theft.
Another former sub-postmistress, Seema Misra, was pregnant together with her second child when she was convicted of theft and sent to jail in 2010. Her case has also been sent to the Court of Appeal.
Ms. Misra said she was "so, so happy" on hearing of the appeal. "No words can do justice to how I feel," she added.
"In Hindi, there's a proverb Satyameva Jayate which suggests 'the truth will always win' and that we were always a robust believer therein ."
Post Office tills that ruined lives 'still faulty'
Jailed Post Office worker: I wanted to kill myself
Helen Pitcher, chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, said: "This is by a long way the most important number of cases we'll ever have referred for appeal at just one occasion.
"Our team possesses an enormous amount of labor, particularly since the judgment in December, so as to spot the grounds on which we are pertaining to these cases."
The finding comes after the Post Office agreed in December to pay almost £58m to settle the long-running dispute with sub-postmasters and postmistresses.
The settlement brought an end to a mammoth series of lawsuits over the Horizon IT system wont to manage local post office finances since 1999.
Ms. Hamilton has had to offer up her shop and located it difficult to urge a replacement job thanks to her record. She made ends meet by doing cleaning jobs for people in her village who didn't believe she was guilty.
"I couldn't get automobile insurance," she said and had to travel to a specialist provider with higher premiums. "I couldn't be left alone with my grand-daughter in her classroom."
A group of postmasters said faults in Horizon led to them wrongly being accused of fraud. The Post Office accepted it had "got things wrong in our dealings with a variety of postmasters" within the past.
Long-running complaint
Ms. Hamilton's fight echoes that of other postmasters seeking justice. She said issues within the Horizon system led to big discrepancies in her accounts, which she reported to her Post Office area manager.
But that manager could find nothing wrong with the system, and she or he was put during a situation where "you had to prove your innocence".
Sub-postmasters run Post Office franchises across the united kingdom, which usually provide some but not all of the services of the most post office.
A group of 550 claimants joined a legal action to win compensation in 2018, but their complaint goes back much further.
They alleged that the Horizon IT system - which was installed between 1999 and 2000 - contained an outsized number of defects.
Some said their lives had been ruined once they have pursued funds that managers claimed were missing. Others, like Seema Misra, even visited jail after being convicted.
In December, the Post Office apologized to the claimants, saying it had been grateful to them "for holding us to account in circumstances where, within the past, we've fallen short."
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