The former manager of a sub post office in Bangor, who was jailed for eight months in 2011 after being convicted of stealing almost £25,000, has been cleared by the Court of Appeal.

 

 

Damian Owen, who managed the Glanadda sub post office on Caernarfon Road, Bangor, was one of 39 former postmasters to have their convictions quashed in the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice.

All 39 were convicted of stealing money, with some imprisoned, after the Post Office installed the Horizon computer system in branches.

Between 2000 and 2014, the Post Office prosecuted more than 700 sub-postmasters, on average one a week, after a bug in the computer system Horizon led to financial shortfalls in branch accounts.

The sub-postmasters appealed their convictions on two grounds: that they had been denied a fair trial, and that the circumstances in which the prosecutions went ahead “represents an affront to public conscience”.

The decision means the postmasters could now bring new civil cases for malicious prosecution, which could mean the Post Office paying out significantly more in compensation.

Announcing the court’s ruling, Lord Justice Holroyde said the Post Office “knew there were serious issues about the reliability of Horizon” and had a “clear duty to investigate” the system’s defects.

But the Post Office “consistently asserted that Horizon was robust and reliable”, and “effectively steamrolled over any sub-postmaster who sought to challenge its accuracy”, the judge added.

Mr Owen, formerly of Menai Bridge, was convicted in 2011 after the Post Office found discrepancies in stock and cash, with total deficiencies of £24,867 between April 2009 and August 2010. Mr Owen had denied the theft and claimed he was untrained and working on an unreliable computer.

In an interview with North Wales Live, Mr Owen said he had “lost everything” as a result of the scandal and even missed out on his child’s first Christmas and birthday, while he was in jail.

He said: “I lost all of it, the job was lost, our home was lost, any kind of decent job was out of the window after it.

“I have two children and when this all happened in December 2011, that would have been my daughter’s first Christmas. I wasn’t there for that, I wasn’t there for her first birthday.

“These are things that even if they do compensate in the end, it’s something that they can’t compensate me for.”

Mr Owen, who now lives in Staffordshire, maintained his innocence throughout the trial and did not accept that any money was missing.

He added: “I only found out that they were looking to quash the convictions within the last month or two – almost ten years since the event.

“I want to see them punished. It shouldn’t have happened.”

Photos: (1) The former Glanadda Post Office in Bangor (2) Damian Owen (Photo used with permission)