Scottish CCRC refers its first Horizon cases

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has on Tuesday referred six cases of for former subpostmasters, including one who has since died, to the High Court of Justiciary, the supreme criminal court in Scotland.

The cases relate to the convictions arising out of the Horizon accounting system, which was found as not “robust” by the High Court in England.

The subpostmasters whose cases have now been referred are:

• Aleid Kloosterhuis, who pled guilty in 2012, at Campbeltown Sheriff Court, to one charge of embezzlement. The court sentenced her to 12 months’ imprisonment.
• William Quarm, who has since passed away, pled guilty in 2010, at Lochmaddy Sheriff Court, to one charge of embezzlement. The court imposed a community service order requiring 150 hours of unpaid work.
• Susan Sinclair, who was convicted in 2004, after a trial at Peterhead Sheriff Court, of one charge of embezzlement. The court sentenced her to 180 hours’ community service.
• Colin Smith, who pled guilty in 2013, at Dunfermline Sheriff Court, to one charge of embezzlement. The court imposed a community payback order requiring 180 hours of unpaid work.
• Judith Smith, who pled guilty in 2009, at Selkirk Sheriff Court, to one charge of fraud. The court admonished her.
• Robert Thomson, who pled guilty in 2006, at Alloa Sheriff Court, to one charge of embezzlement. The court imposed 180 hours of community service and a compensation order of £5000.

The five former subpostmasters and Anne Quarm, on behalf of Mr Quarm, are now entitled to appeal against the convictions for crimes of dishonesty arising from their role and Mr Quarm’s role as a subpostmaster at Post Office.

While the Commission is not, by law, entitled to publish its statements of its reasons for referral, given the public interest in this matter, it has set out below statistics concerning the ‘Horizon/Post Office’ applications to it as well as brief summaries of the background to the cases and the Commission’s underlying legal analysis and conclusions.

“The Commission plays an integral part in the criminal justice system in Scotland, and is committed to addressing potential miscarriages of justice. Our function is to examine the grounds of review and to decide whether any of them meet our statutory test for a miscarriage.

“The cases we have referred today to the High Court are exceptional in the Commission’s caseload as each one is founded upon the operation of the Post Office’s computer system, Horizon, and the conduct of Post Office Ltd,” Bill Matthews, the chairman of the Commission, said.

“We have issued detailed statements of reasons which address all of the relevant grounds. It is for the High Court to decide whether to quash the convictions of the individuals concerned.”

The Commission received in spring 2020 its first ‘Horizon’ applications. It received 12 such applications, but was left with 11 to review after one person withdrew their application.

Post Office had initially provided the Commission with the names of 73 people whose convictions in Scotland may have relied upon Horizon evidence. The Commission said it had traced and written by recorded delivery to those individuals, or their next of kin.

The Commission is currently reviewing five cases.

Last year, the English Court of Appeal quashed numerous criminal convictions in cases in which Post Office had relied upon Horizon evidence. The Court of Appeal held that failures in disclosure by Post Office deprived the appellants of a fair trial and that the actions of POL amounted to an “affront to justice”.

A significant point of distinction between the prosecution of cases in Scotland and those in England and Wales was the involvement in Scotland of Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) as prosecutor. In Scotland Post Office is a “specialist reporting agency” which investigates crimes against the post and reports them to COPFS. In England and Wales, Post Office was the prosecutor in most of the cases.