Post Office workers to get up to £100,000 interim payouts

Post Office workers who have had their convictions for theft, fraud and false accounting – the result of computing errors – quashed will each get an interim compensation payment of up to £100,000 the government has said.

In a written statement to the Commons on Thursday, the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said the government was supporting the Post Office to provide the cash before final compensation settlements were agreed.

The announcement came three days after 12 more Post Office workers had their convictions quashed at the court of appeal. Monday’s judgment took the total number of Post Office workers to be cleared to 57. They had been convicted because the defective Horizon IT system falsely suggested there were cash shortfalls.

Campaigners believe that as many as 900 operators may have been prosecuted and convicted between 2000 and 2014, in one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history...