'I was 8 weeks pregnant... It was terrible...': Indian-origin victim who was jailed wrongly in UK's scandal rejects apology

‘I was 8 weeks pregnant… It was terrible…’: Indian-origin victim who was jailed wrongly in UK’s scandal rejects apology

NEW DELHI: An Indian-origin ex-manager of a Post Office in England, Seema Misra, who was wrongly imprisoned while pregnant, has turned down the apology of a former top official of the government-owned entity amid an ongoing inquiry into the accounting scandal.

Misra, now 47, had her conviction overturned in April 2021 by the Court of Appeal. The court found her to have been wrongly jailed over a decade ago on allegations of stealing GBP 75,000 from her Post Office branch in Surrey where she was the sub-postmistress.

During the recent hearings of the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry in London, former Post Office managing director David Smith expressed regret for a congratulatory email he had sent following Misra’s conviction.

“It was intended to be a congratulatory email to the team, knowing that they had worked hard on the case,” Smith said in his written evidence to the inquiry.

“However, knowing what I do now, it is evident that my email would have caused Seema Misra and her family substantial distress to read and I would like to apologise for that… Even if this had been a correct conviction, I would never think that it was ‘brilliant news’ for a pregnant woman to go to prison and I am hugely apologetic that my email can be read as such,” he said.

“However, seeing this email in the light of what I know now, I understand the anger and the upset that it will have caused and sincerely apologise for that,” he added.

But, speaking to reporters later, Misra rejected the apology which comes many years after her ordeal.

“I was eight weeks pregnant – they need to apologise to my youngest son. It was terrible. I haven’t accepted the apologies,” Misra was quoted as telling the BBC.

“We had my conviction overturned, nobody came at that time to apologise. And now they just suddenly realised that when they have to appear in a public inquiry, they have to apologise,” she said.

Misra was lodged in Bronzefield prison in south-east England and served four-and-a-half months, later giving birth to her second son wearing an electronic tag.

Smith said Misra had been used as a “test case” and the success of the case led to more confidence in the faulty Horizon IT accounting system.

“How can they do a test on a human being? I’m a living creature. I heard that my case had been used as a test case before. But hearing it again and again, it’s just annoying. It makes me more and more angry, to be honest,” Misra said.

The UK government, which formally owns Post Office Ltd, has paid out millions in compensation to hundreds of sub-postmasters – many of them of Indian heritage – impacted by the faulty Horizon software.

Earlier in the year, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised action in the historic scandal which wrongly accused sub-postmasters of fraud.

For more news like this visit TOI. Get all the Latest News, City News, India News, Business News, and Sports News. For Entertainment News, TV News, and Lifestyle Tips visit Etimes