Racial Discrimination A further wrinkle was added to the case in May 2023 when a Freedom of Information request by justice campaigner Eleanor Shaikh revealed that suspects in the Horizon scandal had been grouped by racial features, with offensive terminology used in prosecutors’ official documentation. The document, which is believed to have been created in 2008, appears to show that the Post Officeappointed prosecutors tasked with investigating sub-postmaster shortfalls had been asked to group suspects in this way. The document asked investigators if suspects were “N*****d types”. Other racial categories mentioned in the document included “Chinese/Japanese types” and “Dark Skinned European types”. The finding of the document spurred fresh outrage in the scandal, with several sub-postmasters questioning whether the cases pursued against them had been more severe due to this apparent racial motivation. In a response to the FOI, the Post Office condemned the document’s “abhorrent” language, but described the findings as a “historic document”. “We fully support investigations into the Post Office’s past wrong doings and believe the Horizon IT Inquiry will help ensure today’s Post Office has the confidence of its postmasters and the communities it supports,” a spokesperson said. SPECIAL FEATURE 37 “The Post Office scandal has shocked the British media and public, and it may take many more years before the full scope of the injustice becomes apparent.” The Outcome Following the 2019 High Court ruling, there has been a widespread campaign to see justice for the sub-postmasters whose lives were upended by their wrongful convictions. 44 such cases were overturned in the Court of Appeal in December 2020, with a further 39 being quashed in April 2021 – with the rare finding that the appellants be completely exonerated, owing to the Post Office having acted in such a way as to subvert the integrity of the criminal justice system. The Post Office did not contest the appeals. Further, the Post Office has acknowledged the system faults at the heart of the Horizon scandal and apologised for the human cost incurred. In April 2021, Post Office chief executive Nick Read announced that the organisation would replace the Horizon system with a new cloud-based IT system, and a new independent inquiry was begun in 2022 to examine how the Horizon scandal came about. Years later, however, the Post Office scandal continues to make national headlines. Shortly after the aforementioned 2023 FOI findings, a July report found that 438 sub-postmasters’ applications for compensation remain unresolved. Several of those wrongly convicted have since died without having their names cleared or receiving their due payout.
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