Abiodun Omotoso

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Abiodun Omotoso was one of the “Post Office 39,” a group of former sub-postmasters and post-mistresses who were convicted of offences including theft, false accounting, and fraud, based on information from a computer system called Horizon which suggested that money had gone missing from post-office branch accounts.

Mr. Omotoso initially told the police a false account, that he had borrowed the money from the Post Office to get treatment for sick relative in Nigeria, as he had been told that the true account would not have been believed. He later truthfully told the police that he had no idea what happened to the money. Mr Omotoso pleaded not guilty to theft but was convicted of theft by a jury. The indictment shortfall was £50,358. On 10th October 2008, he was sentenced to 2 years and 4 months’ imprisonment. Also, he was ordered to pay £2,500 in legal fees as well as the confiscation order. As a result, Mr. Omotoso lost his family home and business, was forced to declare bankruptcy and suffered terribly financially.

The basis of each of the prosecutions of the “Post Office 39” was that money missing from the branch account had been a result of theft by the sub-postmaster or mistress, or had been covered up by fraud or false accounting by the sub-postmaster or mistress. On appeal, the Court of Appeal accepted findings that bugs, errors, and defects in Horizon could, and did, cause discrepancies and shortfalls in branch accounts. The court concluded that if the Horizon data was not reliable then there was no basis for the prosecution, and the convictions were quashed. The court noted that failures of investigation and disclosure in the cases prevented the appellants from challenging, or challenging effectively, the reliability of the Horizon data.

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