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Three NI Post Office scandal victims receive £1.8m payout

Getty Images A still image of a red and white Post Office sign attached to a white stone building. Underneath the logo, which is a red oval with Post Office written in white letters, reads 'Bureau de Change'Getty Images
The sub-postmasters' solicitor said his clients had been "fully exonerated" following the redress awards

Three former sub-postmasters from Northern Ireland have received a total of £1.8m in compensation following the Post Office IT scandal.

More than 900 sub-postmasters across the UK were wrongly prosecuted because of incorrect information from the Horizon computer system showing missing payments from their branch accounts.

The three sub-postmasters, who do not wish to be identified, were awarded £600,000 each after being awarded interim payments of £200,000 in December.

Michael Madden, of Madden and Finucane Solicitors, said the payments complete their "full exoneration".

"They lived under the cloud of tarnished reputations for years, and separately experienced devastating damage resulting from the miscarriage of justice," he added.

Mr Madden added that while the redress payments are "greatly welcomed", it does not undo the damage done.

Those who received payments include a woman from the Craigavon area who was convicted of false accounting, a woman from mid-Down who was convicted of theft and a Belfast man who was convicted of theft and false accounting.

What was the Post Office IT scandal?

Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of former sub-postmasters were wrongly convicted on the basis of incorrect data from a faulty IT system called Horizon, which was developed by Japanese company Fujitsu.

The software made it appear that money was missing from Post Office branches when in reality no thefts had occurred.

In 2017, a group of 555 sub-postmasters took legal action against the Post Office and in 2019, it agreed to pay them £58m in compensation.

A law quashing the wrongful convictions of sub-postmasters was introduced last year, and victims were offered compensation under the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme.