Exoneration Record

United Kingdom ยท England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

Post Office Horizon subpostmasters (group entry): wrongly convicted, exonerated

Convicted of Offences such as theft, fraud and false accounting, prosecuted mainly by the Post Office on the basis of data from the Horizon IT system.

SentenceVaried, including prison terms, suspended sentences and community orders
Exonerated2024
How the conviction was overturnedConvictions quashed by the courts on appeal, including 69 of 77 CCRC referrals, and from 24 May 2024 quashed en masse by the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024, Court of Appeal and Crown Courts, then Parliament through the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024, administered by the Department for Business and Trade1,2,3

What went wrong

From conviction to exoneration

  1. The Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024 took effect, quashing Horizon related convictions without the need, for most people, to apply to the appeal courts or the CCRC. The CCRC had referred 77 Horizon convictions to the appeal courts, of which 69 have been overturned.3
  2. The Post Office reported that 111 convictions had been overturned and that 68 million pounds in redress had been paid to that date.2
  3. The CCRC made its first referral to the Court of Appeal of a conviction linked to the earlier Capture accounting system.3
  4. Government data showed 2,228 convictions identified as quashed by the 2024 Act in England and Wales, affecting 610 individuals in Post Office, CPS and self identified cases, plus 21 convictions affecting 9 individuals in Royal Mail Group cases. A further 101 people had already had convictions quashed by the courts.1

Compensation

Post Office reported 68 million pounds in total redress paid for overturned convictions as of 2 June 2025, including 50 million pounds for 71 fully settled claims. Later redress figures are published by the Department for Business and Trade.

Today

As of 30 June 2026, government figures showed 610 individuals with at least one Post Office or CPS conviction quashed by the 2024 Act in England and Wales, in addition to convictions quashed by the courts.

Sources

  1. Department for Business and Trade, GOV.UK, Quashed convictions management information: 2 July 2026 (24 September 2026)
  2. Post Office Ltd, Overturned Convictions and financial redress: information on progress (2 June 2025)
  3. Criminal Cases Review Commission, Post Office Cases (14 November 2025)