Seema Misra, an Indian woman, wrongly jailed in the UK while 8 weeks pregnant

Seema Misra, now 47, had her conviction quashed in April 2021. The Court of Appeal ruled that she had been wrongly imprisoned over 12 years ago after being accused of stealing GBP 75,000 from her Post Office branch in Surrey where she was the sub-postmistress.

During Thursday’s hearings for the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry in London, former Post Office Managing Director David Smith apologized for a congratulatory email he sent after Ms. Misra’s conviction. He expressed regret for the distress caused to Seema Misra and her family and acknowledged the inappropriateness of his email.

Ms. Misra rejected the apology, emphasizing the traumatic impact her imprisonment had on her and her family. She highlighted the lack of accountability and apologies at the time her conviction was overturned and expressed her anger at being used as a “test case” for the faulty Horizon IT accounting system, as revealed in Mr. Smith’s testimony.

The UK government, as the formal owner of Post Office Ltd, has compensated numerous sub-postmasters impacted by the faulty Horizon software. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged action in the historic scandal and introduced the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill to address wrongful convictions.

A public inquiry is in progress and is expected to conclude in July. The Horizon system, developed by the Japanese company Fujitsu, has been the subject of controversy since its rollout in 1999, affecting numerous post offices and resulting in wrongful accusations of fraud against sub-postmasters.