The Department of Labor and Pensions will launch an independent examination on its treatment of prosecution against the staff of the post office, learned Sky News.
A hundred proceedings were carried out by the DWP between 2001 and 2006 during the Horizon IT scandal.
The “independent insurance review”, however, has not yet been ordered and will not examine individual cases.
He comes more than a year after Sky News discovered joint investigations between the post office and the DWP During the scandal – leading to suggestions, some can be “tainted”.
Hundreds of subposters were wrongly sentenced to having stolen by the post office between 1999 and 2015, due to the defective horizon computer system.
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What have we learned from the post office investigation?
The DWP told Sky News that they had “committed” to order the examination in the proceedings by the ministry, where the staff of the post office was the subject of an investigation for “fraud linked to well-being”.
They described cases as “complex surveys” which, according to them, were “supported by evidence including filmed monitoring, stolen benefits and witness declarations”.
They have also added that “to date, no documentation has been identified showing that horizon data were essential for these prosecution”.
The exam will examine a period of time covering 20 years covered by the law of 2024 on offenses from the Post Office (Horizon System), from September 1996 to December 2018.
The Horizon law was effectively covered exemption legislation which automatically canceled the convictions of post offices but has not included prosecutions related to CAPT or capture.
Roger Allen
The family of Roger Allen, who was sentenced in 2004 for stealing pension payments by the DWP and sentenced to six months in prison, are “frustrated”, the exam will not examine their cases or others.
Mr. Allen died in March of last year, always trying to erase his name.
Keren Simpson, his daughter, describes the review as a “development” but a “FOB OFF”.
“I think that makes us get out of their backs,” she said, “I will believe it when I see it because they will not take any responsibility.
“They recognize nothing. They deny everything.
“No one says, look, we really have to dig and take a look at all these cases to see if there is the same model here.”
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“ Daily life was a fight ” – old mastery
Mr. Allen pleaded guilty to save his wife – after his lawyer told him in a letter that there had been “an indication of the crown that they could interrupt the procedure against Ms. Allen, you exhausted to plead guilty”.
Despite the Criminal Affairs Revision Commission which decided that Mr. Allen took place to appeal against his conviction, he was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in 2021.
The independent journal will examine the “methodology and processes” used by the DWP and the “thoroughness and the adequacy” of the efforts to obtain cases of cases.
The DWP says that the exam will not comment on individual affairs or those which have been rejected by the Court of Appeal.
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Post office: lost “capture” files
Potential examiners will also be approached with experience “outside the public service”.
They will be asked to produce a report with recommendations for any other action within six months of the start of their exam.
Lawyer Neil Hudgell, educated by some of the persons prosecuted, described the review as “totally inadequate”, saying that the DWP “should not mark its own duties”.
“Any involvement in the process of appointing examiners undermines all the confidence in the independence of the process,” he added.
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“ All we want is his name erased ”
He also criticized the DWP declaration as “defensive and closed struggle”.
“He cannot be approached anything rigorous or robust without an appropriate case by examining all the cases concerned, including those rejected by the Court of Appeal.”
He said that when hundreds of convictions had been canceled “at a pen”, an appropriate and “targeted” examination is “the least that these bad victims are due”.
“For the moment, there is a generalized feeling among the group that they have been” left behind and which are both legally and morally false “.
A request for freedom of information at the Ministry of Labor and Pensions by Sky News also revealed that most of the cases they have pursued involved the host of order for payment of stolen advantages.
In response to questions about the number of proceedings involving guilty pleads without trial, the DWP said that the information had been destroyed “in accordance with management practices of departmental files” and in accordance with data protection.