CAPTURE VICTIMS YEARS AWAY FROM WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS BEING OVERTURNED

Victims of the second IT scandal at the Post Office will have to wait years before their convictions will be heard in court, the miscarriages of justice watchdog has said.

Karen Kneller stepped down from her position at the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the watchdog which is evaluating Capture convictions, in the wake of stinging criticism of the organisation in recent years.

It follows the resignation of Helen Pitcher, the former chair of the CCRC, in February.

Only once the wrongful convictions have been quashed can the victims join compensation schemes, nearly 30 years since some suffered from the faulty IT software used by the Post Office.

The CCRC told The i Paper it could be “years” before they make a decision on whether Capture cases can be put before the Court of Appeal.

The independent body, which is funded by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), has been accused of mishandling a number of high-profile cases including Andrew Malkinson, who was wrongly jailed for rape for 17 years, and Peter Sullivan, who spent 38 years in jail for a murder he didn’t commit.

Dame Vera Baird, who took over as interim chair last month, said: “The CCRC has a vital role to play in the criminal justice system, but confidence in the organisation has been badly damaged.

“Confidence in our work must be restored.”

Watchdog has had Capture cases for 18 months

The CCRC has also been under the spotlight over the Post Office scandal – the government made the unprecedented decision to use Parliamentary legislation to overturn the convictions of 900 sub-postmasters because it was taking so long for the watchdog to get cases to the Court of Appeal.

The CCRC currently has 30 Post Office cases which pre-date the notorious Horizon computer system and are believed to relate to an earlier piece of software called Capture.

Such delays in having convictions overturned have been likened to a form of torture by Capture victim Steve Marston, who was wrongly convicted in 1998.

He added: “There’s people’s lives at stake here and I think they need to take that into account, reset their values, do what they are there to do rather than delaying things for nonsensical reasons.

“I think they need to realise that each file they are looking at is a person’s life.

“I think the whole culture needs to change. It’s not fair to keep everybody hanging, it’s a form of Chinese torture.”

After months of reporting by The i Paper on claims of wrongful convictions, the Government ordered independent consultants Kroll to carry out a review of Capture which found the software was faulty.

A new compensation scheme is due to open in the autumn but former sub-postmasters and their families who were criminally prosecuted cannot apply unless their convictions have been quashed.

‘There’s people’s lives at stake here’

Although the the CCRC has had some Capture cases for at least 18 months, The i Paper understands it has not yet started taking direct statements from applicants.

It is understood the organisation has promised to provide an update to the Capture victims this summer.

Mr Marston, who was convicted of theft and false accounting, is among those to have applied to have his case referred back to the Court of Appeal but said progress has been slow.

“We’ve not had many updates, we’ve been chasing them,” he said.

“They have been dragging their feet – I think, like the Post Office, there’s been a problem with the culture.”

Mr Marston said he believes Kneller’s resignation “shows that the new chair [Baird] definitely means business when she says that she’s going to clean house. “

‘It’s like pushing treacle uphill’

Juliet Shardlow, whose mum Patricia Owen was also prosecuted by the Post Office in 1998, has also been left frustrated by the pace of developments at the CCRC.

“It’s really demoralising, you feel like you’re pushing treacle uphill,” she said.

Ms Owen, who died in 2003, always maintained her innocence and believed Capture was to blame for the accounting shortfalls at her branch in Kent.

She even commissioned an IT expert, Adrian Montagu, to inspect her computer and the software and he agreed it was likely to produce “gibberish”.

Mr Montagu was due to appear as a witness at her trial but, for reasons which remain a mystery, he was never called to give evidence.

Now aged 77, Mr Montagu is retired but has come forward with a copy of his original report dating back almost 30 years, and told The i Paper he is still prepared to give evidence if required.

“They have the report. If the Kroll report said Capture was faulty, and that is enough for the Government to start giving out compensation, why is not enough to take cases to the Court of Appeal?” said Ms Shardlow.

“They’ve had mum’s case since January 2024, what more does it take?”

‘Entire leadership at the CCRC needs to be replaced’

In a statement, the CCRC told The i Paper it could take “years” before it decides whether Capture convictions can be overturned

“A review can take many months, even years, particularly when convictions date back decades,” a spokesperson said.

“Tracking down material relating to convictions from many years ago is challenging. It might no longer exist.

“It is only relatively recently that the CCRC has become involved in reviewing pre-Horizon cases.”

The CCRC added: “We have received applications regarding 31 convictions which pre-date Horizon.

“Of these, one review has been completed and a committee of three commissioners decided not to refer the case for an appeal because there was independent evidence of theft.

“Twenty-seven cases are assigned to Case Review Managers and under active review, and three cases, which were received only recently, are in the preparatory stages.

“The CCRC is in regular contact with Post Office Limited (POL) to obtain evidence. We have issued section 17 notices requiring them to produce material and we have received some case papers in most, but not yet all, cases.”

Amanda Pearce, who is CCRC casework operations director, has been appointed interim chief executive.

A public inquiry has been ordered to examine the botched handling of Mr Malkinson’s case which was twice knocked back twice by the CCRC until his legal team carried out crucial DNA testing that was then repeated by the commission and led to his release.

A review found that he could have been released 10 years earlier if the CCRC had obtained new DNA evidence as early as 2009, and thousands of cases are being reviewed in the wake of the bungled handling of the case.

In May, the Commons Justice Committee had warned the position of the then CCRC chief executive, Kneller, was no longer tenable.

MPs said in a report it followed “unpersuasive” evidence from her on the CCRC’s challenges and response to public criticisms in April, and concerns on the performance of the review body.

Mr Malkinson said Kneller “failed me as I battled to clear my name”.

2025-07-06T05:10:03Z