FEATURE GRAZIA
The Post Office scandal, whereby some 900 people were wrongly prosecuted for theft, false accounting and fraud, is one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history. Seema Misra was one such victim
‘I WAS EIGHT WEEKS pregnant when I was sentenced to 15 months in prison for theft and false accounting,’ says Seema Misra, 47, a former sub-postmistress in West Byfleet, Surrey. ‘I didn’t think I’d come out of prison alive. I thought someone would stab me or I could get contaminated with something because there was blood everywhere. People would self-harm, there were lots of drugs. If I hadn’t been pregnant, I’d have killed myself.’
Misra is one of an estimated 900 sub-postmasters and mistresses who were wrongly convicted over 16 years after the faulty computer system Horizon was implemented across all Post Office branches in 1999. System bugs made it seem as though money was missing from the business and resulted in an estimated 3,500 branch owners being wrongly accused of stealing. Misra served four months in prison in 2010, until she was six months pregnant, then was put on an electronic tag, which she was forced to wear while she gave birth.
The story of the scandal first broke in 2006, but it was only recently that outrage truly exploded when drama series Mr Bates Vs The Post Office dropped on ITV and shone a light on the human cost. It’s now being called one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history and, after two years of public inquiry, there’s been a surge in interest in the ongoing hearing. Only 93 convictions have been overturned, with Rishi Sunak announcing on 10 January that new legislation is being introduced to ensure those convicted are ‘swiftly exonerated and compensated’. Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake says that £1bn has been budgeted for compensation.
Misra’s conviction was overturned in 2021 after an 11-year battle. She was awarded £100,000 but the ordeal has consumed her life for 18 years. ‘My fight really started in 2005, when I took over the Post Office,’ she explains. The Horizon software, developed by IT company Fujitsu, was already in place at the West Byfleet branch she was running and she noticed a shortfall the first day of her training on the system. ‘It was right in front of the trainer and he said, “Oh, it’s never penny to penny,” and I thought, “Why wouldn’t it be?”’
Soon enough, the shortfalls grew larger and, eventually, Misra was visited by Post Office auditors, who discovered a £4,000 discrepancy, deducting it from her salary. In 2008, another audit found a £75,000 shortfall and she was suspended, then arrested. Confident in the justice system
