Credit: William - stock.adobe.com

The scheme aims to ensure that postmasters receive redress without unnecessary bureaucracy.

Postmasters eligible can either accept a fixed settlement of £600,000 or those who believe their losses exceed that amount can choose a full claim assessment route. This will mean their application will be fully examined by a team of dedicated caseworkers in the Department for Business and Trade.

The scheme will be delivered by the Department for Business and Trade with a key aim of providing as much transparency as possible about how it will operate and how decisions will be taken on redress. Guidance has been published today which will allow postmasters to see how much redress they may be eligible for and what will be taken into account when assessing applications.

Following the introduction of the Act, hundreds of postmasters had their convictions overturned providing they met the following criteria:

• Prosecutions were brought about by the Post Office or Crown Prosecution Service (or in Northern Ireland, the state prosecutor or the police).
• Offences were carried out in connection with Post Office business between 1996 and 2018.
• Offences were for relevant offences such as theft, fraud and false accounting.
• Offences were against sub-postmasters, their employees, officers, family members or direct employees of the Post Office working in a Post Office that used the Horizon system software.
• The conviction has not been considered by the Court of Appeal or Appeal Court of the High Court of Justiciary

Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood, said: “Justice must be a reality, not an ideal. Today we begin putting this into practice by overturning the convictions of the innocent postmasters affected by this inexplicable and unprecedented miscarriage of justice.

“I pay tribute to those hard-working men and women for their courage and determination. I am pleased today we can begin to right this wrong and ensure they are quickly and fairly compensated.”