A second Post Office conviction linked to the faulty Capture system has been referred to the Court of Appeal in a landmark moment for campaigners, The i Paper can reveal.
Steve Marston, 70, was prosecuted for offences of theft and false accounting in 1998 over alleged shortfalls in his accounts.
He insists he never stole “a penny”, and the alleged missing money was a result of bugs in Capture, a primitive piece of accounting software rolled out to branches in the 1990s.
The i Paper first revealed Marston’s story and details of a second IT scandal at the Post Office, which predated the notorious Horizon system, in January 2024.
Since then, the Government has commissioned an independent report which concluded that Capture was faulty and likely to have caused accounting problems.
A new compensation scheme separate to the £1bn pot set aside for Horizon claims has been launched. It has now paid out more than £1.6m and is being expanded.
But those with criminal convictions, like Marston, will not receive any cash until they can get them overturned.
The first Capture case, involving the prosecution of sub-postmistress Patricia Owen, was referred to the Court of Appeal last October.
Now the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) confirmed Marston’s case will also be referred on the basis that there is a “real possibility” it was an “abuse of process”.
Marston told The i Paper that the CCRC’s referral is “the news we’ve been waiting and praying for.”
“This is a massive step forward, but there’s still a long way to go and more hurdles to clear.
“We’re not allowing ourselves to take anything for granted.”
Marston said he would be celebrating with his wife, Jan, by having a “nice meal and a bottle of wine.”
The legal term “abuse of process” is usually used when a judge decides to halt a prosecution because it is wrong or a misuse of court procedures.
In a landmark ruling in 1998, high court judges said there is “no single formulation” to cover all abuse of process cases, “but there must be something so gravely wrong as to make it unconscionable that a trial should go forward, such as some fundamental disregard for basic human rights or some gross neglect of the elementary principles of fairness”.
‘Conviction brought shame and forced me to move’
The Post Office developed Capture in-house via its own IT team and told sub-postmasters it would speed up the process of processing their weekly accounts.
At least 2,000 branches are believed to have adopted the system between 1992 and 1999.
Marston, like many others, had been using paper ledgers without any issue until Capture came along.
He could not understand why he kept experiencing shortfalls, but says Post Office investigators told him computers “don’t make mistakes”.
The CCRC says it believes Marston paid out more than £23,000 of his own savings in a bid to cover losses at his branch in Heap Bridge, Greater Manchester, before he was eventually prosecuted.
He pleaded guilty at Preston Crown Court, claiming that the Post Office said it was the only way to avoid an immediate prison sentence.
Marston says the conviction brought him a huge amount of “shame” as well as lost friendships, and he was forced to move away from the area.
The CCRC says it continues to review cases from other sub-postmasters who were convicted of offences before and following the introduction of Horizon.
To date, the watchdog has received 37 pre-Horizon applications.
Eight of these cases were determined by a committee of three commissioners not to raise a real possibility that the conviction would be overturned, and so they will not be referred to the Court of Appeal.
Three have now been referred. One case turned out to be a Horizon case, and so was already covered by legislation. The other 25 cases are being reviewed.
CCRC Chair Dame Vera Baird KC said: “Mr Marston’s conviction meant not only the loss of his business but the loss of his savings. He suffered significant reputational damage and had to relocate his family to another area, all because of what appears to be flawed accounting software that he was under pressure to adopt.
“It will now be for the Court of Appeal to decide whether Mr Marston’s conviction is unsafe.”
Solicitor Neil Hudgell, of Hudgell Solicitors, which is representing a number of Capture victims, said: “I’m so pleased to see Steve’s case refereed to the Court of Appeal as he is a very decent man who deserves an early end to this process, but now we have to wait to hear how the Post Office responds.
“There is clearly still some way to go even after a referral from the CCRC, but we are determined to clear the names of innocent people, no matter the difficulties faced due to the lack of documented evidence in many cases, given the time which has passed.”
A Post Office spokesperson said: “The Post Office wants all unsafe pre-Horizon convictions to be overturned, and we will continue to do everything we can to ensure that appeals are considered as swiftly as possible in accordance with the law and our duties to the Courts.”
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