SEEMA MISRA: Jail those who covered up Post Office scandal like I was

Those who covered up the Post Office scandal should be thrown in jail… just like I was, writes SEEMA MISRA, who spent four months behind bars after being wrongly convicted of theft

After years of being fobbed off and lied to, at long last I – and so many others – might finally get the answers we’ve been denied for decades.

I am one of those betrayed and scapegoated subpostmasters due to give evidence at the long-awaited Post Office inquiry. Yet I’m dreading having to go through my ordeal all over again.

As much as my lawyer might remind me I’m not attending as a criminal, and that my conviction for fraud and false accounting has been overturned, the trauma I carry means I’m still serving a lifetime sentence.

Seema Misra at home in Guildford, Surrey. She writes: ‘I’m dreading having to go through my ordeal all over again’

Going back as a witness reminds me of when I walked into my trial at Guildford Crown Court in November 2010 – and wasn’t allowed out of the same door. Instead I was sent straight to prison.

I was found guilty of theft and false accounting after £74,609 disappeared from the post office accounts in West Byfleet, Surrey, where I was a subpostmistress. 

Pregnant, terrified and with a ten-year-old son at home, I was led off in handcuffs and served four of my 15 month sentence. I gave birth two months after my release.

In the eyes of the law I remained a criminal until my conviction was finally overturned at London’s High Court last April, by which time my husband Davinder and I had lost our livelihood and had our second home confiscated to pay off the money we had allegedly stolen.

I’d been called a thief by strangers on the street and Davinder attacked because he was my husband.

Forced to move to escape the harassment and unable to work thanks to my ‘criminal’ record, I was too ashamed to even tell my son’s friends’ parents my surname, in case they Googled me and discovered my conviction.

I was housebound with anxiety, my family financially crippled. And all this time, the executives who helped cover up the wrongdoing against me and hundreds of others were left to enjoy big salaries and enviable lifestyles.

So yes, I’m angry.

After all this time, nobody has been held accountable.

In the 17 years since this nightmare started, I have received just one bland, copied-and-pasted letter of apology, last May, from Post Office chairman Tim Parker.

Those responsible for this catastrophic miscarriage of justice have always worried more about saving their skins than saying sorry.

Ms Misra, who was jailed for a conviction of theft in 2010, celebrating with her husband Davinder outside the Royal Courts of Justice, London

Not that an apology will redress the wrongs against us. 

Those in power need to explain exactly what they knew, and when – and why they withheld the truth for so long, destroying so many lives in doing so.

That’s what this inquiry is about. The executives and officials and their legal advisors who turned a blind eye or facilitated this horrific cover-up should be behind bars, like I was.

Of course, this inquiry won’t end in prosecutions, but the judge can recommend the authorities investigate – and I hope he does.

Not that I believe the Post Office won’t try to delay or confuse the facts again. Even before my 2010 trial, the Post Office had discussed a potential ‘bug’ in its software – but didn’t make their memo available to my solicitor.

When it was revealed in 2019 that software bugs, errors and defects did exist, it emerged key evidence had been withheld and documents shredded.

Trying to drag information out of them has been draining, damaging and financially devastating. Subpostmasters have taken their lives as a result of the smears against them.

So as well as uncovering the truth, this is about finally giving those who lost their livelihoods compensation.

While I welcome a statutory inquiry with the power to call witnesses, it should be expanded to cover the issue of compensation. It should also make sure senior employees of Fujitsu, who developed the faulty software, are called to the inquiry. 

Only when I know everything will I be able to put the past behind me. I want to enjoy life again, but until this inquiry gives me the answers I and many others are entitled to, that will be impossible.

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