Former sub-postmistress rejects apology from former Post Office boss after prosecution ordeal

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A former Post Office boss has apologised for saying {that a} pregnant sub-postmaster being wrongly jailed for 15 months was “brilliant news”.

David Smith, a former managing director on the government-owned agency, emailed colleagues to congratulate them on efficiently prosecuting Seema Misra, who was eight weeks pregnant on the time and had been accused of stealing £75,000 from her department in West Byfleet.

He advised the inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal that, “with a 2024 lens”, the e-mail about her case was “poorly thought through”.

Ms Misra, whose conviction was quashed in 2021 however has not but obtained compensation, stated she didn’t settle for his apology and stated he was solely saying sorry as a result of he was at a public inquiry.

Asked by Sky News if she accepted the apology, she stated: “No, definitely not.”

Referring to Mr Smith’s proof that the Post Office noticed her prosecution as a “test of the Horizon system”, she stated: “How can they do a test on a human being? I’m a living creature and they did mention a test case and then apologising after 14 years, it’s not… I haven’t accepted it.”

She added: “Like all the people who are appearing in the inquiry, I asked them, please accept [that] everyone lied enough. So please for a change can they come in and tell the truth, nothing but the truth. That’s what we need.

“Yes they are apologising now but they missed so many chances before. We had a GLO [compensation scheme], we had my conviction overturned, nobody came that time to apologise. And now they just realise that when they appear in [a] public inquiry they have to apologise.”

Ms Misra – who has not but obtained compensation for the miscarriage of justice – added that she nonetheless has nightmares about her prosecution: “It was a horrible, horrible time. I’d been waiting for my second pregnancy for nearly eight years and then news came through I was going to trial and we couldn’t even celebrate because we had a trial hanging over our head.

“It was really bad. I’m okay to fight and all that but the sentencing bit, the imprisonment, the four months away from my family, that was the most horrible. It still gives me nightmares.”

Mrs Misra started working a Post Office in West Byfleet, Surrey, in 2005, however was suspended in 2008 after being accused of stealing.

She was handed a 15-month jail sentence on her son’s tenth birthday in November 2010 and was eight weeks’ pregnant when jailed.

Mrs Misra’s conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2021.

Following her conviction and sentence, Mr Smith despatched an e-mail to managers, together with Paula Vennells, asking to “pass on my thanks” to the authorized staff.

His e-mail learn: “Brilliant news. Well done. Please pass on my thanks to the team.”

In his witness assertion to the inquiry, Mr Smith stated his remark of “brilliant news” was as a result of truth he believed “Horizon had been proved to be robust” following Mrs Misra’s trial.

The former managing director additionally blamed the dearth of additional investigation of complaints made by subpostmasters in regards to the Horizon IT system on “institutional bias”.

Mr Smith stated the organisation’s board members have been “not as focused as we could and should have been on the Horizon issues” as a result of a banking disaster and “concern” over enterprise points and that potential alternatives have been missed to “consider an external investigation”.

It was recommended that the Post Office commissioned a report – generally known as the “Ismay Report” – to provide assurances in regards to the defective IT system which was supposed as a counter-argument to allegations made in opposition to Horizon. Mr Smith denied this, however admitted that “there were potential opportunities missed at the time of the Ismay report to dig deeper, or to consider an external investigation.”

An inside Post Office e-mail from the top of data safety Sue Lowther in March 2010 confirmed that the organisation wished a overview of the Horizon system to “confirm our belief in the robustness of the system and thus rebut any challenges”.

Mr Smith – who was the Post Office’s managing director between April and December 2010 – additionally admitted that the Post Office’s powers to analyze and prosecute instances may need meant the organisation didn’t “act independently”.

He stated there have been “inherent risks” concerned within the prosecutions going down in-house versus by an impartial authority.

He advised the inquiry: “I’m sad to say at the time I didn’t really reflect on it in the way that I perhaps should have done.”

Mr Smith added that, with hindsight, administration ought to have recognized these dangers, to place in place “better control mechanisms”.

Asked to what extent he accepted duty for not figuring out that threat, Mr Smith responded: “I certainly think I am a part of it.”