Courtroom of Attraction rejects Publish Workplace Seize case delay request
The Courtroom of Attraction has rejected the Publish Workplace’s request for an extension to the time wherein it should reply to an attraction towards convictions made based mostly on its Seize software program.
The Publish Workplace’s request for a two-month extension earlier than it delivers its formal response to the attraction of former subpostmaster Steve Marston was closely criticised by campaigners and has now been rejected by the appeals court docket. However the Publish Workplace might additionally attraction towards this choice.
In response to Marston, because it stands, the deadline is 13 Could, and if the Publish Workplace doesn’t attraction efficiently, there will likely be a instructions listening to on 20 Could for 3 Seize-based instances.
Marston informed Laptop Weekly: “I’m over the moon that the court docket is following this route slightly than permitting the Publish Workplace to additional delay proceedings. I’m trying ahead to getting the chance to be exonerated. We’ve waited for practically 30 years, so we simply need to get on with it now and get the possibility to place this episode in our lives to an finish.”
The Publish Workplace had not responded when this text was printed.
The Legal Instances Evaluation Fee (CCRC) referred Marston’s attraction to the Courtroom of Attraction on 27 March. Marston, who was a subpostmaster in Bury, Lancashire, used the Publish Workplace’s defective Seize system to do his accounts. He was convicted in 1997 for theft and false accounting, following an unexplained shortfall of practically £80,000. Marston mentioned he had by no means had any issues utilizing the paper-based accounting system, however that modified when his department, which he ran from 1973, started utilizing the Seize system.
In October 2025, an attraction towards the 1998 conviction of Patricia Owen, who died in 2003, was the primary Seize case to be referred to the Courtroom of Attraction. She pleaded not responsible to the theft of £6,000, however was convicted and sentenced to 6 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 2 years, at Canterbury Crown Courtroom.
One other case has been referred since Marston’s.
Extra ready
There are presently about 30 prosecutions beneath overview by the CCRC. In contrast to convictions based mostly on the Horizon system, which have been overturned en masse by means of laws, these based mostly on Seize should undergo the CCRC.
The Publish Workplace mentioned it was treating every attraction on a case-by-case foundation.
Seize, which predates Fujitsu’s Horizon system, was utilized in Publish Workplace branches within the Nineteen Nineties to interchange paper-based accounting. As with the controversial Horizon system on the centre of the Publish Workplace scandal, which noticed subpostmasters blamed for unexplained losses, some Seize customers have been prosecuted for monetary crimes.
The controversy over Seize emerged in January 2024, after ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Publish Workplace informed the tales of subpostmasters who had suffered by the hands of the Horizon system.
In the identical month, Kevan Jones, an MP on the time who now sits within the Home of Lords, highlighted proof of injustices triggered by Seize losses.
This led to a marketing campaign and, by December 2024, the federal government promised monetary redress and justice for subpostmasters affected by Seize issues. This adopted an unbiased investigation by forensic consultants at Kroll, which discovered there was a “affordable chance” the Publish Workplace Seize software program had precipitated accounting losses.
Marston has been a central determine within the marketing campaign for justice for former Seize customers.
The controversy over Seize is a part of the Publish Workplace scandal, which Laptop Weekly first uncovered in 2009, revealing the tales of seven subpostmasters and the issues they suffered on account of the Horizon system.
