Surely this is a miscarriage of justice in itself?

Some great responses thank you, I have to go out but look forward to reading all again later. I love ‘slithery elites’ and will definitely be keeping that in my repertoire!

Thank the Lord they no longer hang people - hate to think how many innocents were put to death.

www.barrybaines.co.uk/captivate-podcast/miscarriage-of-justice-stefan-kiszko/#:~:text=He%20was%20charged%20on%20Christmas,solicitor%2C%20Stefan%20retracted%20his%20confession.&text=At%20trial%20Stefan%20pleaded%20guilty,have%20made%20him%20behave%20unusually.

DNA evidence which could have cleared Stefan Kiszko was not presented to the court and was not, at that time, available to the defence.

Not only was Stefan convicted of a heinous crime he did not committ, spending a horrendous time in prison, the real child rapist and murderer was free to live his life.

I think one clear outcome of the PO scandal is that full legal aid should be available to all defendants in criminal cases without regard to their financial circumstances. Defendants need access to the best lawyers, not the cheapest. Some postmasters who pled guilty would undoubtedly have been worried about the negative financial impact on their loved ones of paying for a full defence.

Grantanow

I think one clear outcome of the PO scandal is that full legal aid should be available to all defendants in criminal cases without regard to their financial circumstances. Defendants need access to the best lawyers, not the cheapest. Some postmasters who pled guilty would undoubtedly have been worried about the negative financial impact on their loved ones of paying for a full defence.

And when they lost I believe at least some of them had to pay the Post Office's legal costs.

The number of people, and offences which might attract legal aid have both been cut drastically.

M0nica

At the heart of this scandal is that the Post Office has the right to mount its own criminal prosecutions when it is also the victim and the investigator of the alleged offence.

This is is such an inherent injustice and so opens the door to systematic injustice that I cannot ubderstand why this danger was not seen years ago. Among the public bodies able to bring private prosecutions are the Civil Aviation Authority, the Health and Safety Executive, the Gambling Commission, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Food Standards Agency.

Surely some independent body should have to review the evidence before any corprorate body brings a private prosecution. In the PO case if that had happened an outside reviewer would have seen the pattern of what was happening and could have officially said that it wanted an independent review of the Horizon system before further prosecutions were mounted.

Absolutely, excessive power, abused at every stage. This needs to change starting with independent reviews to oversee all evidence before prosecutions can take place, for all of the organisations listed above.

The PO debacle was aired back in 2015 I think, on Panorama, but the recent drama has really set the country alight with absolute shock at the incredible injustices.

nanna8

Thank the Lord they no longer hang people - hate to think how many innocents were put to death.

It doesn’t bear thinking about nanna8, horrendous.

Heartbreaking case of Stefan Kiszko, and too many similar.

Cold

It was the perfect storm for injustice - the same organisation (Post Office) was, in this case, the "victim", investigator and prosecutor. They also controlled access to all information and mislead both the High Court and the Court of Appeal that the computer system was working perfectly, without error and that the problems the Postmasters complained of, were impossible - although they knew that concerns had been raised within IT.

Plus, the Post Office benefitted financially from the situation as the money the Post Office claimed was "stolen" was actually sitting in Post Office accounts as payments that couldn't be traced. After a few years the Post Office took this money and claimed them as additional profits even though they bankrupted the postmasters to "repay the theft". Therefore the Post Office got the money twice.

Staggering injustice. I wonder if any of those responsible will be prosecuted and be punished accordingly.

Including Adam Crozier.
A couple will fall on their swords (Ed Davey? Paula Vennells?), and the rest will keep their heads down, and hope the public will move on.

eazybee

The man who was accused of rape and was sentenced to 7 years, was not released for seventeen years because he refused to admit guilt, until he was found innocent due to DNA testing. He was awarded compensation, which the prison authorities tried to claim because' he owed them for board and lodging'.
Britain is run by what Allison Pearson described as a 'slithery elite., the band who move from well-paid job to sinecure, and at present they seem untouchable. Someone on the radio this morning was advocating prison sentences, and until these people are convicted and lose their status and money, they will continue to act this way, simply because they can.

This is inhuman. And so many others imprisoned wrongly; those innocent men for the bombing in Birmingham in the 70s. And it goes on and on.

I think the reason why the post Office drama caused such an outcry apart from the obvious gross injustice is that almost everyone has had the experience of trying to get a response from government bodies and large businesses like the banks and waiting on the end of a so-called customer service call for hours or for a response on a problem that should take a few minutes to sort out. Newspaper problem pages are full of this. John Major is probably the only politician to try to deal with this through his Citizen's Charter but it was never a great success. The government and business attitude seems to be 'Let them wait. Let them queue. Let them die.'

Answer to the OP, yes it is quite wrong that innocent people should be advised to plead guilty. Makes a travesty of the system. Someone earlier mentioned this was to reflect the courts being put 'to the trouble of expense of a trial'. Surely that is what the courts are for?

It was the perfect storm for injustice - the same organisation (Post Office) was, in this case, the "victim", investigator and prosecutor.

If some of these cases had to be tried by the usual process its quite possible that the DPP would have found that the evidence did not meet the standard for a likely prosecution.

You have to wonder what kind of a justice system we have that, even when these cases went to trial, the courts could not correctly determine that these people were in fact innocent.

‘Flawed’ does not begin to describe it.

I follow this with interest and horror. One of the questions that springs to my mind is why any initially intelligent, respectable and honest person would want to be a criminal lawyer when 'the system' is known to have so many flaws and shortcomings. They can't surely all be desperate for money and prestige at the outset?

eazybee

The man who was accused of rape and was sentenced to 7 years, was not released for seventeen years because he refused to admit guilt, until he was found innocent due to DNA testing. He was awarded compensation, which the prison authorities tried to claim because' he owed them for board and lodging'.
Britain is run by what Allison Pearson described as a 'slithery elite., the band who move from well-paid job to sinecure, and at present they seem untouchable. Someone on the radio this morning was advocating prison sentences, and until these people are convicted and lose their status and money, they will continue to act this way, simply because they can.

It stinks, doesn't it.

I haven't the time right now to double-check this, but I am pretty sure that I have read that a convict will not even be considered for parole until they admit the crime of which they have, rightly or wrongly, been found guilty. If there has been a miscarriage of justice, it seems they can't win either way!

If I am wrong, hopefully someone will quickly set matters straight.

Thoughtful and thought provoking responses, thank you all. Makes depressing reading doesn’t it. Can’t begin to imagine being personally involved.

nanna8

Thank the Lord they no longer hang people - hate to think how many innocents were put to death.

100% nanna8 Says it all.

Oldnproud, you are right, a prisoner is not considered for parole until they admit their group. This is why Andrew Malkinson was in prison for 18 years.

His is not the only case. There have been many cases. the most famous:The Stockwell 6, The Maguire 7, The Guildford 4 and the Birmingham 6. There were a whole series of miscarriages of justice that ended in people being imprisoned in south Wales. To name but a few

To name a few M0nica. This is time gone from their lives and family they’ll never get back. No amount of compensation can make up for this. It’s very sad.

While wellbeck does provide an explanation as to why it is done, I agree that it has to be wrong to persuade someone to plead guilty, to avoid a custodial sentence, when in fact they are innocent. It would seem that our justice system isn't so just after all.

I think one of the saddest things to come out of the Post Office scandal is that quite a few small village communities actually believed their postmaster had stollen the money. They were ostracised and their children bullied and taunted at school. That is truly heartbreaking.

Being advised to plead guilty when you know you are innocent in order to get a lighter sentence, smacks far too much of ‘plea bargaining’ to me, which is a morally bankrupt practice. We hear far too much about this in the US. courts. Do we really want this dreadful practice to become commonplace here? (Although it probably happens more often than we think under our ‘justice’ system!)