Post Office scandal victim jailed while pregnant rejects boss’s apology for celebrating conviction
Ex-subpostmistress Seema Misra, who was sentenced to 15 months in 2010, said she still has nightmares about her imprisonment and that she did not accept David Smith’s apology
A victim of the Horizon IT scandal who was jailed while pregnant has rejected an apology from a former Post Office boss who appeared to celebrate her wrongful conviction.
Former subpostmistress Seema Misra, who was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010, told the Mirror she still has nightmares about her time behind bars and she did not accept David Smith’s apology. Asked why she thought he was finally saying sorry now, she said: “He knows the public is behind the postmasters.”
She added: “If he really wanted to apologise, he missed so many chances anyway. Why apologise now?” The 48-year-old mother-of-two said the sorry was “definitely a PR exercise.”
Ms Misra, who had to give birth wearing a tag, said: “When the judge gave me imprisonment, my faith was completely lost.” She added: “Prison was the most horrible bit. It still gives me nightmares, I still can’t get over it.”
Former Post Office boss David Smith denied requesting a ’cover up’ report on the Horizon IT system ( Image: AFP via Getty Images)
More than 900 subpostmasters were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 as Fujitsu’s flawed Horizon software made it appear as though they were stealing cash.
Giving evidence to the Post Office Inquiry today, Mr Smith admitted saying that Ms Misra’s conviction was "brilliant news" may have caused “substantial upset” and was "poorly thought through". He said he was thanking his team for their “hard work” and the “terrific” result that the “Horizon had been proved to be robust” in her court trial.
"It’s nothing more or less than that - and in the context of probably receiving 200-300 emails a day, which would have been typical at that time, I would literally have gone ’brilliant news well done, thanks very much, send’ and that would have been it,” he said.
Mr Smith said he was "shocked and frankly appalled" to hear the Post Office knew about Horizon errors while prosecuting Ms Misra, and denied he was aware of bugs in the system at the time.
But he was forced to admit that a report he ordered into Fujitsu’s computer system was “largely” to “provide assurance” for the Post Office on “why Horizon was robust”. It follows auditor Rod Ismay saying he had been commissioned to produce a “one side of the coin” report at the inquiry last year.
Barrister Flora Page, who represents a number of subpostmasters, suggested Mr Smith “deliberately had your team produce a report for you which would cover up the fact that you knew and everyone in your senior leadership team knew that Horizon’s integrity was very much in doubt”. He denied the allegation.
Mr Smith, who served as the managing director from April to October 2010, said "institutional bias" within the Post Office prevented further investigation of subpostmasters’ complaints about Horizon. He confessed board members were "not as focused as we could and should have been on the Horizon issues" due to a banking crisis and "concern" over the separation of the company from Royal Mail.
Former Post Office chairman Sir Michael Hodgkinson, who also gave evidence today, said he was “never” told about early concerns with the Horizon IT system raised by auditors in a 1999 letter. He agreed evidence shown to the Inquiry suggested the Post Office was developing a strategy to "refute any suggestion that Horizon is unreliable". He also admitted he "didn’t do anything" to check if the business was prosecuting its own people properly.
Asked what his message is to affected subpostmasters , Sir Michael "apologised unreservedly" that he did not discover the problems with the Horizon system during his time as chair and "for the misery that then subsequently caused". He said he was "saddened and appalled" at the evidence that has come out about the scandal over the 15 years since he left the company.
Ms Seema, who was wrongfully blamed for a £74,000 shortfall, has said being eight weeks pregnant was the only thing that stopped her killing herself after she was sentenced to 15 months in jail for theft and false accounting in 2010.
The 48-year-old did not have her conviction quashed until 2021 alongside dozens of other ex-Post Office workers in one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in legal history. She has previously told the Inquiry the Post Office acted "like a mafia" and "have blood on their hands".
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