Case: John Dickson

John Dickson 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. In July 2012, Mr. Dickson pleaded guilty to one count of fraud. He initially pleaded not guilty, but was then told if he pleaded guilty, they could get the charges against his wife (who operated the Post Office with Mr. Dickson) dropped. Mr. Dickson had been inflating cash declarations to hide the shortfalls. The indictment shortfall was £23,887. Mr. Dickson was sentenced to 8 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 2 years, with the requirement of 180 hours’ unpaid work. Also, in October 2012, a confiscation order was made in the sum of £23,887 to be paid as compensation. 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. As a result of the case, Mr. Dickson struggled to gain new employment, suffered weight loss and sleeping problems and felt as if he could not go out due to shame.