A Nottinghamshire Post Office worker wrongly convicted in the Horizon IT scandal has died without being fully compensated, an inquiry was told. On Thursday, April 27 the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry’s chairman Sir Wyn Williams announced that Robert Boyle died suddenly earlier in April.
The former subpostmaster had been accused of taking nearly £12,000 in cash from the Alfreton Road sub post office in Nottinghamshire. Mr Boyle was handed a 12-month suspended sentence with 100 hours of unpaid work and an electronically monitored curfew in January 2012 after pleading guilty to theft.
He had his conviction overturned at the Court of Appeal in July last year. The court was told that Mr Boyle had put his home up for sale as he realised the discrepancies in the branch’s finances were not going to be rectified, intending to use the money from the sale to fix the shortfall.
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In 2019, a group of 555 subpostmasters successfully challenged the Post Office over the Horizon system in the High Court. A public inquiry was established in September 2020 to examine the failings which led to the scandal.
The Times recently reported that almost 60 subpostmasters wrongfully convicted for fraud or theft in the 2000s and 2010 due to accounting flaws caused by the Horizon IT system had died without being fully compensated. Sir Wyn told the public inquiry he was “anxious” about the timeline of a compensation scheme for victims of the scandal.
Sir Wyn said on Thursday: “It is my sad duty to report that on April 5 Mr Robert Boyle, a former subpostmaster, passed away suddenly.
“On my own behalf and on behalf of the whole inquiry team, I extend my deepest sympathies and condolences to Mr Boyle’s family and friends.
“Shortly after Mr Boyle’s passing I received an application from his son, Christopher, who is Mr Boyle’s executor, to become a core participant in the inquiry, and I have granted that application.
“I understand the position to be… that Mr Boyle senior, if I can call him that, received two interim payments under the Overturned Conviction Scheme, but his final award had not been finalised prior to his death.”
The last time the Horizon inquiry met in March this year, Sir Wyn announced that two other postmasters, Isabella Armstrong-Wall and Lynette Hutchings, had died. A Times investigation, based on data from freedom of information requests sent to the Post Office and its owner the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), found that 59 former subpostmasters had died to date.
The majority of those had not been fully compensated before their deaths. Addressing Nicholas Chapman, who represents the DBT, Sir Wyn said he was anxious about its ability to fully compensate victims before its deadline next year.
He said: “I cannot express my anxieties about this timeline too strongly, anxieties in the sense of, you will have upwards of 400 people making applications (…) and you have approximately 15 months in order to achieve your objective."
Mr Chapman said the DBT was doing “everything it reasonably can to ensure free and fair compensation.” Kate Gallafent KC, representing the Post Office, told the inquiry that a second compensation scheme, the Historical Shortfall Scheme, would not be completed before the end of March 2024.
Thursday’s hearing came as two other subpostmasters, Sheila Coultas, 59, and Victor Ingham, 79, had their convictions quashed by the High Court. Ms Coultas, who worked at a post office in Stamford, Lincolnshire, admitted false accounting in 2008, and Mr Ingham, from Cemaes Bay, Anglesey, admitted theft and false accounting in 2005.
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