Widower of jailed Post Office employee loses attraction combat
T
he widower of a Post Office employee jailed after being convicted of theft has misplaced a Court of Appeal combat.
Ian O’Donnell wished to posthumously clear the identify of his spouse Joanne, who died seven years in the past aged 64.
Three attraction judges lately thought-about the case of Mrs O’Donnell, who labored at North Levenshulme Post Office in Manchester, and on Tuesday dismissed the attraction.
Lord Justice Holroyde, Mr Justice Picken and Sir Nigel Davis, who heard arguments at a Court of Appeal listening to in London in June, have been advised that Mrs O’Donnell had been convicted of theft and given a seven-month jail sentence after a trial at Manchester Crown Court in 2007.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) had referred the case to the Court of Appeal after being contacted by Mr O’Donnell.
A spokesman stated the case had been referred within the wake of the Horizon IT scandal.
Lawyers representing the Post Office opposed the attraction.
This will not be one of many distinctive and uncommon circumstances through which it could be acceptable to conclude that Mrs O’Donnell’s conviction is unsafe on both of the abuse of course of grounds which have been superior on her behalf
Errors made by Horizon software program, which was made by tech agency Fujitsu and utilized by the Post Office, led to the wrongful convictions of dozens of individuals for false accounting and theft between 1999 and 2015.
Of some 700 convictions between 1999 and 2015, 132 circumstances have been by means of the appeals course of leading to 83 overturned convictions and 49 unsuccessful appeals, in keeping with the Post Office.
Lord Justice Holroyde stated attraction judges had beforehand thought-about appeals in opposition to conviction by many former Post Office workers prosecuted a few years in the past after being convicted of dishonesty offences.
He stated these circumstances raised points about abuse of course of and the security of convictions, “having regard to concerns about the reliability” of Horizon.
The choose stated Mrs O’Donnell had denied wrongdoing however been convicted by a jury after a five-day trial.
He added: “For the reasons we have given, this is not one of the exceptional and rare cases in which it would be appropriate to conclude that Mrs O’Donnell’s conviction is unsafe on either of the abuse of process grounds which have been advanced on her behalf.”
In a written ruling, Lord Justice Holroyde stated: “We have read a moving letter by Mr O’Donnell, which makes clear the distress which Mrs O’Donnell and her family suffered as a result of her conviction.
“We can well understand why he remains convinced of her innocence and wishes to clear her name.
“We must, however, decide this appeal in accordance with the law rather than on a basis of sympathy.”
The choose added: “We are satisfied that the conviction is safe. This appeal therefore fails and must accordingly be dismissed.”
Lawyers had raised numerous considerations concerning the security of Mrs O’Donnell’s conviction.
They included a “material failure of disclosure”, “the unreliability of Horizon data that was essential to the prosecution”, and the “poor level of investigation”.