Sir Alan Bates has called for those responsible for the wrongful convictions of sub postmasters in the Capture IT scandal to be “brought to account”.
It comes after Sky News unearthed a report showing Post Office lawyers knew of faults in the software nearly three decades ago.
The documents, found in a garage by a retired computer expert, describe the Capture system as “an accident waiting to happen”.
Sir Alan said the Sky News investigation showed “yet another failure of government oversight; another failure of the Post Office board to ensure [the] Post Office recruited senior people competent of bringing in IT systems” and management that was “out of touch with what was going on within its organisation”.
The unearthed Capture report was commissioned by the defence team for sub postmistress Patricia Owen and served on the Post Office in 1998 at her trial.
It described the software as “quite capable of producing absurd gibberish” and concluded “reasonable doubt” existed as to “whether any criminal offence” had taken place.
Ms Owen was found guilty of stealing from her branch and given a suspended prison sentence.
She died in 2003 and her family had always believed the computer expert, who was due to give evidence on the report, “never turned up”.
Patricia Owen (right) was convicted in 1998 of stealing from her post office branch. She died in 2003
Adrian Montagu reached out after seeing a Sky News report earlier this year and said he was actually stood down by the defending barrister with “no reason given”.
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