Surely this is a miscarriage of justice in itself?

As you swear ‘to tell the truth the whole truth’ when you go into court, it makes a mockery of it all doesn’t it?

If you tell a lie in court it’s Perjury, it’s sad that to get a lighter sentence you have to lie on oath if you are innocent.

Read The Secret Barrister for an insight into the criminal justice system and it's flaws. It's alarming.

That’s interesting Puddycat, I haven’t read it. A nightmare prophecy.

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.

Franz Kafka wrote The Trial in 1914. It's like he had a window into the victims of the Post Office.

^ The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information.^

That’s true welbeck but still an awful shame for those who are genuinely innocent to have to do this in order to get a more lenient sentence.

but the sentence is likely to be higher if they have put the court to the trouble and expense of a trial, and are then found guilty.
so, it's a gamble.
their lawyer needs to advise them of likely consequences.
if the evidence stacks up towards a likely guilty verdict, it is in the defendant's interests to kind of mitigate the situation by pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity.

Absolutely Callistemon21, it all seems so unfair. Obviously the PO scandal is utterly outrageous and exactly the same principle, people getting a criminal record they don’t deserve. But this seems to happen a great deal of the time.

DH mentioned this yesterday in relation to the Post Office cases. Innocent postmaster and mistresses were advised to plead guilty by their solicitors even though they (and presumably their solicitors) knew they were innocent, to avoid a prison sentence.
Unfortunately some still received custodial sentences.