A former sub-postmaster named Sami Sabet who received a 12-month suspended prison sentence in 2009 after being wrongly accused of stealing £50,000 from the Post Office has said that he feels "incredible" after his conviction for false accounting was overturned at the Court of Appeal.
Sky reported that Sabet ended up with £100,000 of debt trying to pay the money back despite having repeatedly tried to tell the Post Office that he was not to blame and that it was the fault of Horizon. He was one of 12 sub-postmasters to have their names cleared by three judges at the court in London on Monday. He used credit cards and loans to pay the money back for Post Office's Horizon IT system’s glitch.
"I cannot believe that this day has come. You couldn't imagine the anguish I have suffered. There's not a single minute of a single day that I didn't go over this,” he told Sky News.
Hasmukh Shingadia is one more name who was convicted of false accounting. "It's absolutely wonderful not only for me but for my wife and two daughters who went through the same hell as I did. It's Freedom Day for a lot of us really. I want to go back to my family and relax,” he told Sky.
The other names whose convictions were quashed on Monday were Robert Ambrose, John Armstrong, Jerry Hosi, Gurdeep Singh Dhale, John Dickson, Abiodun Omotoso, Malcolm Watkins, Carina Price and Rizwan Manjra. 19 more cases will be considered in November, but there are already more convictions being investigated.
