CW+ Premium Content/Computer Weekly

The British public should now be familiar with the plight of former subpostmasters who suffered life-changing hardship at the hands of the Post Office, which blamed and punished them for accounting losses caused by its own computer system. The overturning of the wrongful criminal convictions of subpostmasters for crimes such as theft and fraud are understandably dominating the headlines, as there have been 63 so far, with many more expected, out of a total of 736 convictions based on computer evidence. The wrongful prosecution of subpostmasters has been described as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in UK history, and it has no match in terms of the number of people wrongfully prosecuted. However, there is another major injustice playing out in the background – one which the government seems less eager to resolve. The same faulty computer system that led to subpostmasters wrongfully receiving criminal convictions and, in many cases, prison sentences, also caused financial losses and destroyed the lives of thousands more...