 That concludes topical questions. The next item of business is a statement by Dorothy Bain Casey on horizon IT prosecutions. The Lord Advocate will take questions at the end of her statement, so there should be no interventions or interruptions. I call on Dorothy Bain Casey up to 10 minutes, Lord Advocate. Presiding officer and members, I am grateful to the Parliament for inviting me to address is very important matter. I wish to take a moment at the outset to acknowledge the harm caused to the people in these cases who have suffered a miscarriage of justice. The wrongly accused and convicted postmasters and postmistresses are due in apology from those who have failed them, and I do that today as the head of the system of criminal prosecution in Scotland. The post office is part of that system and I apologise for the failures of those in the post office who were responsible for investigating and reporting flawed cases. As a prosecutor, preventing and correcting miscarriages of justice is as important to me as inviting a court to convict for a crime. That is fundamental to my commitment to the rule of law. Today I shall set out what Scotland's prosecutors have done to protect the rights of postmasters and what they have done to uphold proper administration of justice. There is a great deal that could be said on this but I am limited in time. However, I am determined that the public should understand the issues that have arisen, and I am committed to future transparency and the publication of information when I can appropriately do that, being mindful of on-going legal processes. The Crown Office and Procate of Fiscal Service is the only public prosecution service in Scotland. It acts independently and makes prosecutorial decisions in the public interest. It receives reports of alleged offences from over 70 investigative agencies, including the post office. The relationship between a prosecution authority and an investigating agency must be based on absolute candor and trust. As an investigating agency, the post office must act fairly, and that includes an obligation to reveal to prosecutors all material that may be relevant to the issue of whether the accused is innocent or guilty. It is clear that the post office failed in its duty of revelation and, as a result, some individuals were prosecuted when they should not have been. Where miscarriages of justice have happened, it is because prosecutors in Scotland accepted, as they were entitled to, evidence and explanations at face value from the post office. When it became clear that those explanations could no longer be relied upon, prosecutors changed policies, dropped cases and subsequently supported the work of the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission, the Court of Appeal in Scotland and the UK-wide public inquiry. To help Parliament understand the impact of the post office's failures in its duty of revelation, I shall summarise the history of the work of Scotland's prosecutors when dealing with cases that have come to be known as horizon cases. Between 2000 and 2013, there is no record of prosecutors having been made aware of the bugs and errors in the horizon system that we now know. Significantly, those bugs and errors impacted on the reliability of evidence submitted by the post office. In May 2013, the post office, via external lawyers, first contacted prosecutors to address public concerns that had been raised regarding the horizon system. In the months that followed, the post office and its external lawyers sought to provide assurance to prosecutors that the system was robust. In providing those assurances, the post office lawyers referred to two reports, one of which had been prepared by the independent auditor, Second Sight, which concluded that there were no systemic defects with the horizon system. Further, the post office advised prosecutors that it had instructed an independent law firm to review all potentially affected, concluded Scottish cases and no concerns about the accuracy of the evidence that was submitted by the post office in reporting those cases for prosecution was raised. Despite those assurances, in particular, the independent report which concluded that there was no systemic issue with the system, on 7 August 2013, recognising the continuing public concern, Scottish prosecutors were advised to carefully consider any post office case to determine if horizon impacted it whilst information was awaited. That advice was shared to assist prosecutors to consider how best to proceed. Then, on 5 September 2013, a meeting took place between Scottish prosecutors and post office officials, including their external legal counsel. At that meeting, post office officials repeated their assurances to Scottish prosecutors, but, moving forward, it was agreed that post office would obtain expert evidence and a further report to support the integrity of horizon evidence. Meantime, Scottish prosecutors continued to follow the approach that was set out on advice issued to them on 7 August 2013. Post office failed to deliver those assurances timeously, and, as a result, in the months that followed, prosecutors took the decision to take no further prosecutorial action in several newly reported cases. Post office and crown office officials met again on 6 October 2015. During that meeting, post office officials advised that they remained confident in horizon. Indeed, the then CEO of the Post Office Limited had given evidence to that effect at a parliamentary select committee in February 2015, advising that they remained confident in the horizon system. Notwithstanding that, post office confirmed that they were unable to provide a final expert report or provide expert evidence that would support the integrity of the horizon system and defend challenging court. At that stage, in light of the failure to provide a second site report—a final report from a second site—or provide any expert evidence regarding the horizon evidence, Scottish prosecutors formalised what was, by then, their cautious approach. On 20 October 2015, prosecutors were advised to assess all post office cases and report for Crown Council's instruction with a recommendation to discontinue or take no action in cases that relied on evidence from the horizon system to prove that a crime had been committed. During that period, post office did not disclose to prosecutors in Scotland the true extent of the horizon problems, as they are now known to be. Scottish prosecutors received assurances that the system was robust. Those were assurances that prosecutors without the benefit of hindsight were entitled to take at face value. They would not have known nor indeed suspected that the Post Office may not have been revealing the true extent of horizon problems. Because of the failures by the Post Office, we now know that a number of people in Scotland may have suffered a miscarriage of justice. In circumstances such as those, our justice system enables those who may have suffered a miscarriage of justice to appeal a conviction by virtue of an application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, who may themselves review and refer a case to the High Court of Justice for appeal. The findings in the English group litigation headed by Alan Bates, which were later endorsed in 2021 by the English Court of Appeal when caution 39 convictions of those it had held had suffered a miscarriage of justice, are significant. It was those judicial determinations which identified and confirmed, beyond doubt, the extent of the problems with horizon and the adverse impact that those had on prosecutions across the United Kingdom. In September 2020, supported by Crown Office and with information provided by the Post Office, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission wrote to 73 individuals who may have been convicted in Scotland on the basis of unreliable evidence from the horizon system, with the purpose of inviting an application for their case to be reviewed. To date, to the best of my knowledge, 16 individuals have come forward to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. Of that 16, the commission has made seven referrals to the High Court, four of which have already resulted in convictions being overturned. In addition to those individuals who have been written to by the commission in recognising the role that can play in assisting the commission's work, the Crown Office, separate from the list identified by the Post Office, identified potentially affected cases with a view to identifying whether any other individual may be impacted to ensure that no possible miscarriage of justice is missed. That was the basis for the recent information from Crown Office that around 100 cases may be horizon cases. Work is on going to review those cases, and as of today, that number has reduced to 54. Those are continued to be considered by prosecutors as potential horizon cases, but most of those have already been written to by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. It will be noted then that, of those written to, only a small portion of people have come forward to identify themselves as possibly affected. That may be indicative of the fact that not every case in which horizon evidence is present will represent a miscarriage of justice. It is important to recognise that in Scotland there is an established route of appeal in circumstances such as this. That route involves the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission considering cases in the first instance prior to referring appropriate cases to the court of appeal. That is an important process because not every case involving horizon evidence will be a miscarriage of justice, and each case must be considered carefully and with regard to the law. It is also important to recognise the important and established constitutional role of our appeal court in Scotland and that due process must be followed. Scottish prosecutors have taken appropriate steps to expedite those appeals where possible. That has included obtaining a court order against the post office in order to recover essential documentation relevant to the appeals. Before I finish, I want to say this. I am very deeply troubled by what has occurred and I remain acutely concerned that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service were repeatedly misled by the post office. Assurances that were just not true were repeatedly given. To those wrongfully convicted, I understand your anger and I apologise for the way that you have been failed by trusted institutions and the criminal justice system, and I stand beside you in your pursuit of justice. I want to assure this chamber those wrongly convicted and people of Scotland that I will do all that I can do to prevent such an affront of justice of our system from ever happening again and to the right the wrongs that have occurred. I commit to transparency in the information that is held by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service subject to the restrictions of the on-going appeals and the on-going public inquiry. I can also advise Parliament that I sought urgent advice on the continued status of the post office as a reporting agency in Scotland. I know that there are calls for allegations of criminality in the post office to be investigated. That is a step that requires to be tackled at a UK national level. The consideration of any criminality in Scotland on the part of those responsible for the failures of the post office will require to wait until the public inquiry has concluded and the full scale of their actions is understood. Thank you. The Lord Advocate will now take questions on the issues raised in her statement. I intend to allow around 30 minutes for questions after which we will move on to the next item of business. It would be helpful if members who wish to ask a question were to press their request-to-speak buttons now. I call Russell Finlay. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thanks to the Lord Advocate for advance sight of her statement today. Now, while the Crown's apology will be welcomed, many questions remain unanswered. The post office horizon scandal is a disgraceful mass failure of justice. Innocent people branded thieves hounded, wrongly convicted, some going to their graves, reputations destroyed. Every single Scottish prosecution was undertaken by Crown office. We know that in 2013 Crown prosecutors refused to put at least one suspect in the dock due to concerns about horizon evidence, but it was two years later before they abandoned all prosecutions. When the full extent of the scandal emerged, the Crown had a legal duty to disclose that to victims, but they did not. The public should also have been alerted to the damage inflicted on innocent Scots. They were not. Remember that this is the same Crown office that denied wrongdoing over the Rangers' prosecutions, only to then compensate victims with more than £60 million of taxpayers' money. During both of those scandals, the Lord Advocate was Frank Mulholland. Why did the Crown not come clean as soon as they discovered that the horizon evidence was fundamentally flawed? Should Frank Mulholland come to this Parliament to answer victims' questions? I deal with the reference that Mr Finlay has made in relation to a January 2013 case. That is an inaccuracy that has been widely reported and repeated in this Parliament. It has been said that the date on which prosecutors must have been aware of horizon issues was January 2013. That date comes from documentation that was presented to the public inquiry. A post office case disclosure document was referred to in the inquiry that contained a date in January 2013, as the date on which a case was closed in Scotland because of concerns regarding horizon. I can advise that the date in that post office case closure document is inaccurate. The case to which the document was related was not reported to prosecutors in Scotland until May 2013. It could not therefore have been disclosed in January 2013. We know that it was in fact closed in 2014 because of concerns regarding how long it was taking for the post office to confirm its position regarding horizon and the risk of raising a prosecution in which essential evidence may have been unreliable. My officials have written to the inquiry to correct its inaccuracy. Separately, I think that it is incumbent on me to say this. The post office is a specialist reporting agency and has been for many decades. It is one of the oldest reporting agencies. As a result, it was a trusted organisation with an established reputation as being one of the most successful government agencies. When it came to reporting horizon cases, it professed to be an expert in the horizon system in its operation. Its experienced staff provided witness statements explaining the operation of horizon and spoke of how it was used to commit criminal offences. At the time that the cases were reported, there was no reason to doubt that evidence. Indeed, the post office obtained an independent report confirming that there was no systemic issue with horizon. It simply could not have been anticipated that the post office, its investigators and the independent auditors could have been so wrong. This miscarriage of justice is truly exceptional and nothing similar has ever been seen before. Its facts and circumstances are unique and I consider the risk of anything similar occurring again to be remote. The reporting agency had a duty of disclosure under the 2010 act. It was incumbent on them to operate under the code of practice issued on 6 June 2011. The disclosure duty on the crown in relation to horizon simply was not engaged. It had no information undermining the crown case or supporting the defence case that required to be disclosed. We were told that the system was reliable. Indeed, that was the position of the post office, right up until 2019, when we can see from the decision in the Bates case that they continue to assert that the system was sound. I would reject the statements that have been made by Mr Finlay and the undermining of prosecution service in this case. The sub-postmaster scandal is without a doubt one of the most shocking miscarriages of justice in recent history. Hundreds of Scottish sub-postmasters and their families had their lives ruined today. I am sure that they will welcome the apology today, but I am not sure that we have learned anything new from today's statement and I think that questions still remain. Ministers in the Crown Office knew of issues with the evidence from the post office over a decade ago in 2013, but we need to know why new prosecutions only formally halted two years later and why no immediate action was taken to review all previous convictions as to whether they were unsafe. I welcome the recognition that there may have been criminal behaviour by post office officials in Scotland, but I do question the Lord Advocate's suggestion that that is action for the UK to look at at a UK level. Surely criminal activity in Scotland must be investigated in Scotland and does it need to wait for a public inquiry? Sub-postmasters in Scotland have waited long enough for justice. They shouldn't be forced to wait a moment longer. Lord Advocate. I would simply go back to my statement to highlight the fact that between 2000 and 2013 there was no record of prosecutors having been made aware of the deficiencies in the high-rise system. In May 2013, the post office lawyers contacted the Crown to address public concerns. In that meeting, and indeed thereafter, right up until October 2015, the post office officials advised the Crown Office officials that they remained confident in horizon. That was a statement made by the post office officials that included officials from the post office, their legal team, their barristers who attended Scotland and their expert reporters. All those individuals throughout that period asserted that the system was sound. They continued to assert that the system was sound well into 2019 because we know what was said in the decision by the court in England in relation to the Bates case. It is simply wrong to assert that the Crown Office officials knew that there were problems with the horizon system until such time as the Bates decision was issued and ultimately the Court of Appeal in England and Wales issued the Hamilton decision. It is wrong to say that the Crown were aware of problems, did nothing about it and can continue to prosecute in the face of reported problems. That is just not what happened. In relation to criminality in Scotland, if there are reports of criminality by individuals within the post office made to the Scottish Police, then naturally, through the normal process of reporting to the Crown Office and Procate of Fiscal Service, we will be advised of the police investigation and the subsequent police report and what that has revealed. If that material comes in, obviously, there will be a reaction to that. However, at the currently, I understand that prosecuting authorities across the UK, the police and other prosecutors across the UK, have identified those issues. Certainly, it is important that we bear in mind that the on-going public inquiry requires to fulfil its remit. I am not saying that we will do one thing and not the other, but we just need to be aware of the complex situation that we are in here in the respect that we have live cases before our Court of Criminal Appeal. We have an on-going public inquiry, the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission continues to do their work, and, if there are separate new reports of criminality, they will be considered as they should be. Clare Adamson, to be followed by Sharon Dowie. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Lord Advocate, this issue is Byzantine in its complexity, not least being the many varied contract in terms under which postmasters were employed over this period. Some postmasters of long-standing when faced with, in the Lord Advocate's words, birds and errors associated with horizon handed back their businesses, but, in their words, were coerced into signing non-disclosure agreements. They were scared then, and they are scared now. Can the Lord Advocate comment on the legal status of any such NDA signed by Scottish postmasters and the likelihood of prosecution under that NDA? Lord Advocate. I am afraid that I do not know any of the detail that has been referred to there. I do not know of a non-disclosure arrangement or a non-disclosure agreement being entered into by individual postmasters or sub-postmistresses. If it is an issue that is relevant to the on-going work of the Crown and the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission, that information should be passed to the relevant individuals and, indeed, to Crown Office, and we can consider it in and around when we are considering the actions that are involved in the case by the post office and its investigators. Susan Sinclair, Judith Smith, Rab Thompson and William Corm, just a few of the many prosecuted by the Crown Office in Scotland on the basis of this flawed horizon IT system used in the post office, one of whom has since died. Last week, the SNP's Justice Minister said that this scandal shows the value of having an independent prosecution system. This statement from the cabinet secretary will jar with sub-postmasters who were prosecuted by this so-called independent system. Lord Advocate, do you not agree that the independent prosecution system in Scotland completely failed those wrongly convicted sub-postmasters? Lord Advocate, I do not agree with that statement at all. I think that I can only go back to explain what I did in my statement, which is that in the period from 2013 to 2015, the Crown Prosecution Service in Scotland was simply not aware of the difficulties with the horizon system because of the lack of disclosure and revelation by the post office. As I have pointed out to you, the post office is a specialist reporting agency and has been for many decades one of the oldest reporting agencies in this country. They were a trusted organisation with an established reputation as being one of the most successful Government agencies in our country. Prosecutors were entitled to taking at face value their repeated assurances that the horizon system was safe. What I think is also important to understand is this. I have apologised profusely for the failings in the system that has led to all those individuals who have suffered a miscarriage of justice being so impacted. They were convicted when they should not have been, and they have been forced to live for years with injustice. However, we have a process in this country for establishing whether or not there has been a miscarriage of justice. Not every horizon case in Scotland will be capable of being characterised as a miscarriage of justice because in Scotland we have corroboration and in Scotland a number of the cases did not solely rely on horizon evidence. It is critical when we come to consider whether or not there has been a miscarriage of justice that the appeal court in our country is allowed to take cognises of what has happened and be informed of what has happened. At any appeal hearing, the court of appeal will require to be explained to them why it is that the Crown do not support a conviction, and the court of appeal will be required to be told why it is that in cases, for example, that there has been an admission of guilt, that that admission of guilt should be withdrawn and, indeed, cases in which there is a plea of guilty that that plea of guilty should be withdrawn. There are long drawn-out processes, as I accept, that are taking some time to conclude, but it is critical that we have a due process and a process that is clear and transparent, and that is the process that we are currently engaged in with the appeal court with the work of the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission and the work that the Crown Office and Procate of Fiscal Service are doing in relation to those appeals. Stuart McMillan, to be followed by Colleen McNeill. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I was contacted yesterday, Presiding Officer, by a lawyer of a constituent who was prosecuted for stealing £30,000 from the post office. He is not a sub-postmaster, although his mother was, and they were both prosecuted for the theft. My constituent even repaid the £30,000, so his mother did not need to go to jail. I do not imagine at all that this will be a unique case, but I can ask that if any quashing of convictions and any legislation will be extended to cover everyone where their convictions are directly related to Horizon and the post office. I think that what is being referred to there is a case that is currently live before the Court of Appeal in Scotland. I cannot comment on live cases. I recognise from the particular information that has been referred to there that this is actually one of the live cases that is before the appeal court. I think that what is important to understand is that many of those cases are very old, and it is difficult to establish what the factual circumstances in many of the affected cases were because of the crown policy of destruction of summary cases that are over two years old and chevron jury cases that are over five years old. Much of the material that we are required to rely on and interrogate is material that has been obtained through the post office and indeed some of the work of the Scottish Criminal Review Commission. Although evidence obtained from a Horizon system may have featured in any case, that does not necessarily mean that the prosecution was reliant on this evidence and that no crime was committed. In many cases, as I have pointed to, there was an immediate and unequivocal admission of guilt by the accused, but identification and corroboration of the offence came via the Horizon system. So one difficulty encountered is the passage of time and we have been required to recreate to the best of our ability what the prosecution case may have been based on information from a variety of sources. That is time consuming and challenging. In terms of complexity, there are complex legal issues arising here because they relate to the sufficiency of evidence and whether or not Horizon was essential or not essential to the sufficiency of evidence. It introduces questions about withdrawals of guilty pleas and in any normal case these are difficult issues for their pellet law and they become even more difficult in circumstances for Horizon cases for the reasons that I have described. So the on-going process that I am involved in, that the prosecution service is involved in and the recognised process is that we are engaged in, is time consuming but it is complex and there is good reason for why it has taken quite so long. I would point finally to the issue that I have raised before, which is that it was not until 2019 when the English Court decided that the Horizon system was fundamentally flawed in the face of repeated assurances by those from the post office that we could begin to make the progress that we are now making for all of those people who have suffered a miscarriage of justice. Pauline McNeill, to be followed by Keith Brown. Thank you. Stuart Monroe of the Law Society wrote, the procurator of fiscal service appeared to ignore the requirement of the prosecution but it prosecuted the post matters by using one source of evidence saying that they didn't apply the principle of corroboration because the evidence came from a computer system criticised for its lack of reliability as far back as 2009. I asked Lord Advocate what is the crown's position on this. The post office obviously had a vested interest in defending their system but it was one source of evidence that would appear. I do fully appreciate the complexity of this Lord Advocate but of the 73 convictions that we know about, will the crown examine whether or not corroboration was properly applied in those cases to ensure that there was more than one source of evidence in order to take those to prosecution? Lord Advocate. I think that Mr McNeill makes an important point and yes, of course, we will look at the cases that are before the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission. We have done so and we widened the scope of the cases that have gone to the commission. We have looked to see whether or not there was an independent source of evidence, independent of the flawed horizon system evidence that the post office supported. I also recognise the question that prosecutors could have done more and earlier but my position is that that proposition is incorrect. It presupposes that the crown knew that sub-post matters were being told by the post office that they were the only ones affected and it also fails to recognise that those cases were being dealt with across the country and were not restricted to one locality. Had there been a spike in one area that may have been an identifiable trend but the reality is that many cases were spread out it will be known that it's not unusual for individuals to protest their innocence so it is easy now to reflect with the benefit of hindsight and say the concerns of that postmaster should have carried more weight because of the concerns of another postmaster across the country but it's simply not correct what has resulted in the miscarriages of justice here and I really can't be clearer about this is that horizon was unreliable the post office were aware of that and yet they failed to properly inform the crown about it the vast majority of the cases that may be affected by this issue were cases in which they accused plague guilty to the offence often these pleas were tendered under legal representation whilst it's impossible to comment on every case prosecutors do not mark cases to proceed in the absence of corroboration they simply don't do that defence solicitors do not advise clients to plead guilty in the absence of corroboration and in cases which proceed to trial the sheriffs do not convict in the absence of corroboration as such it is reasonable to infer that in cases which resulted in a conviction whether by guilty plea or conviction after trial there was other evidence available which was supporting which was capable of supporting the finding of guilt called Keith Brown to be followed by Alex Cole-Hamilton can i thank the lord advocate for her statement and also for her support in my efforts to represent my constituent Robert Thompson the former postmaster of canvas post office in his quest for justice which at long last is getting the attention it deserves and can also disassociate myself in the stomach churning attempts by the Tory front bench to protect their friends protect their friends in the UK government by trying to blame them they put the crown office one of the most striking things about the scandal has been how difficult it's been for victims to claim compensation what's a very obvious miscarriage of justice and this was confirmed in the UK parliament this morning with the solicit for many of the affected sub postmasters Neil Hunchall revealing that only three people have been fully compensated so far of the around 900 wrongly prosecuted does lord advocate agree with me that the 2006 scrapping of the existing scheme for compensation for victims of miscarriage of justice under Labour and the 2014 anti social behaviour crime and policing act which further limited compensation available to miscarriage victims of miscarriage of justice under the conservative and liberal democrat coalition represents the continual weakening of the UK's ability to respond to miscarriage of justice by successive UK governments I know this is uncomfortable for the Conservatives and that this scandal and that this scandal has shown that the UK system for responding to miscarriage of justice is not fit for purpose lord advocate yes so again Mr Thompson's case is a case that's coming before the appeal court very soon and I can't comment on live cases but let me be clear work has been under way by the crown and the Scottish criminal case review commission for a number of years we've worked closely with the Scottish criminal review commission and other agencies to identify cases affected and take what steps we can to correct injustices Scotland has its own legal system and due process must now take place and that means that any affected case must be considered by the Scottish criminal case review commission before being referred to the high court of appeal that is the process and the legal system requires each case to be considered on its own facts and circumstances having regard to all of the evidence not just horizon evidence this process does unfortunately take time and that has impacted on Mr Thompson's case but every effort is being made and has been made to expedite the cases where possible and I know that the Scottish government have engaged with the UK government to try and create an expedited process in relation to the compensation scheme for victims of this miscarriage of justice I'm not in a position to comment on that that is a matter that is outwith my remit thank you I would just remind members that members should seek to avoid referring to specific cases which may be active before the courts at this moment and I would also there's a great deal of interest in this statement this afternoon and I appreciate that Lord Advocate wishes to give us comprehensive a response as possible but we do have a great deal of interest remaining in this item and I call Alex Cole-Hamilton thank you very much Presiding Officer Presiding Officer this has been one of the most appalling miscarriages of justice in our national story lives and livelihoods have been ruined former post office workers across all four nations are now rightly pursuing the justice that they have been denied for so long it's clear from the Lord Advocate statement that the Crown Office like members of the public the press and government officials were repeatedly lied to as part of an industrial scale deception and the Lord Advocate confirmed anasawa that there will be consideration of any criminality by the post office after the conclusion of the public inquiry if complaints are made to Police Scotland so can I ask the Lord Advocate whether this consideration will apply would apply to solely the post office as an agency as a whole or whether it could apply to specific individuals within that agency and whether Police Scotland can act on the findings of the inquiry directly or if it would need a third party complaint to begin legal proceedings in Scotland Lord Advocate so thank you Mr Cole-Hamilton for the question in relation to a criminal report of criminality on the part of post office officials or indeed the corporate entity of the post office these criminal considerations these criminal complaints would be considered by the Scottish police force and investigated and reported in the normal fashion in addition to that where there is a complaint of individuals criminality that would also be a report that should be made to the police and the normal processes of police investigation and reporting to the crown office and procurator fiscal service should be carried out and as I indicated in my statement the review is on going crown office continue to seek to identify the true extent of affected cases in Scotland we anticipate the relevant number of affected cases will be relatively low but I know that one miscarriage of justice in Scotland is one too many I'm also waiting urgent advice on the continued status of the post office as a specialist reporting agency and members can be confident that I will look at that advice very carefully and consider the options open to me but my first priority our first priority must be to correct the miscarriages with justice that is what I intend to do and where our immediate focus must be as but please be assured Mr Cole Hamilton in due course all options will be considered but in relation to the ongoing public inquiry determinations from that will have to be considered in due course and the extent to which findings can be relied on considered by lawyers within the crown office that is not a straightforward question to answer at this stage Michelle Thompson to be followed by Maggie Chapman thank you Presiding officer and I know that there's still relatively few applications to the Scottish criminal cases review commission to what extent is consideration being given to how deep trauma can affect cognitive capacity and that the potential for retraumatisation could act as a real barrier to some in applying and what further support if any can be offered by either the crown or the SCCRC in the situation Lord Advocate so I think that is an important question and a very legitimate point to make in the circumstances in these cases and the circumstances that we know about that individuals such as sub postmasters and sub postmistresses were brought into the criminal justice system without any previous involvement or any understanding of what might be involved and there's no doubt that the impact of cases that involve a miscarriage of justice will have been deeply traumatising will have impacted significantly on individuals and may very well reveal relate to the fact that only 16 out of the 70 odd cases that refer to the commission people have actually responded to say I've been a victim of a miscarriage of justice so what I'd say to people today is if you have been a victim of a miscarriage of justice because of the horizon system failures please be assured that your complaint your application your indication for a need for help will be supported and you will be supported in clearing your name if that's what's to happen in your case the support will be there the commission the crown office and any other institution involved in helping people who are the subject of miscarriage of justice are aware of the deep trauma that's been brought about by these cases and we say this we are here to help you if you've been a victim of a miscarriage of justice please come forward. I thank the Lord Advocate for her statement and associate myself with comments made by others the apology is welcome for sub postmasters have been failed by what should be trusted institutions. I heard what the Lord Advocate said about addressing any criminality by the post office or by individuals in the post office however will the crown office consider pursuing either the post office and or Fujitsu for proceeds of crime in respect of bonuses earned through defrauding sub postmasters. The involvement of Fujitsu is an involvement that came about because of the contractual arrangements with the UK government and the provision of services under the contract for the horizon system. The question of process of crime is also an issue that arises under United Kingdom legislation but we do know that in Scotland we are capable of raising our own proceedings and we raised proceedings in relation to which offences have been committed within our jurisdiction but given the UK wide issues here we will work closely with our prosecuting authority colleagues across the UK to identify the best way in which any prosecution of any individual or corporate entity can be brought forward in order to ensure that justice is served and that where any wrongdoing has happened that those responsible for that are brought to justice and so we can't just say things will be done in Scotland, things might be done in England today at this stage. I predict the sensible way forward would be a UK wide approach supported by prosecuting authorities across the whole of the United Kingdom. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can the Lord Advocate confirm whether she or any of her predecessors had discussed the issue of wrongful convictions of sub postmasters with any Scottish Government ministers before 2024? If so, when and with whom and if she can't, it's not one of the very many important questions that this Parliament should be entitled to Lord Mulholland. Lord Advocate, yes. The question was whether or not I'd discussed these matters with Scottish ministers in 2024. Prior to 2024. No, I have not discussed any of the issues in these cases with Scottish ministers in 2024 or my predecessors. No, I haven't. I haven't discussed it with them. In relation to Lord Mulholland that you mentioned, Lord Mulholland was the Lord Advocate, one of my predecessors in the office. I'm not quite sure as that today's standing here what year he served for, but I have never discussed these cases with Lord Mulholland, if that's a question. I hope that that's a question. Thank you, Colfergus Ewing, to be followed by Michael Marra. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I ask the Lord Advocate this? Surely all evidence from the horizon computer system is now utterly discredited, and where that evidence played any part in any conviction, surely a reasonable doubt must therefore appertain. The Lord Advocate will be aware of the article by former sheriff Kevin Drummond KC in Scottish legal news last Friday, where he suggested the swiftest solution to overturning this egregious miscarriage of justice. That can be done by the Lord Advocate announcing the intention of the Crown Office prosecutors to present the appeal court in Scotland with a list of convictions with case references, informing it that investigations have revealed that these convictions are unsafe and based on flawed evidence, and the court would then be invited to overturn them and would have no alternative to do so. Will the Lord Advocate proceed to follow former sheriff Drummond's advice? I thank you very much for raising former sheriff Drummond's advice that was published recently. There is a process that he has identified by which cases can be brought to the appeal court and the Crown can indicate that they are not supporting the convictions. That is true, but that is not the whole picture. I think that it is misleading to suggest that I could simply attend at the appeal court with a list of cases and tell the court of criminal appeal to cause the convictions. There is such a process but always, always because of reasons of sound public policy and in recognition of the constitutional role of our court of appeal, prosecutors have to be able to explain why it is that they are no longer relying on a conviction. I have explained before that not every horizon case will be a miscarriage of justice because there were, in cases, sufficient evidence to support the criminal conviction. That is demonstrated by looking at, for example, the material from England and Wales that shows that a number of cases have been referred by the case of criminal appeal to the court of appeal in England. Some of those cases have been quashed because there was a miscarriage of justice, but not all of the cases have resulted in the conviction being quashed. It is not as simple as me saying that here is a list of cost convictions. It is imperative that due process is followed, that a lawful consideration is taken of all the cases, consistent with the rule of law, that sound public policy underpinning the need for our court of criminal appeal to understand why somebody might have pled guilty and now seek to withdraw their plea, and certain evidence is no longer relied on by the prosecution authorities. Those are issues that are rightfully explored, but in our court of criminal appeal, before the decision is made by them to quash the conviction. We have a process that is in place here, and it is the right process, it is due process recognising, as I say, that not all horizon cases will result in a finding of a miscarriage of justice. There was other evidence in the cases that would indicate a reasonable basis for a finding of guilt. I think that, although Mr Drummond is well recognised in the field of criminal law, he is just wrong about the assertion that I can simply do what he suggested. Michael Myrra, to be followed by Audrey Nicholl. Thank you, Presiding Officer. In May of 2023, I hosted sub-postmasters from across Scotland here in Parliament. All of the sub-postmasters gathered appeared to have given up on the idea of real justice on this issue. This was a stain that they had learned to live with. Their voices had gone unheard. The Lord Advocate tells us today that the word of the venerable trusted institution, the powerful and their lawyers, trumped ordinary citizens and the mounting evidence of reporting in publications such as Computer Weekly as far back as 2008. Is the Lord Advocate telling us today that evidence from a so-called trusted institution must be taken at face value? Does the Lord Advocate not think that if the Crown Office only listens to the establishment that a further appalling miscarriages of justice are inevitable in Scotland? Lord Advocate. I have already set out that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service were not advised of the deep and profound difficulties with the horizon system, and they did not know about that until 2019 as a result of the work of the Mr Bates and the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses who took the action that they did in the courts in England and Wales. I have already pointed out that if you look at the judgment in Bates and in the case of Hamilton, it is clear from those judgments that the Post Office continued to assert that there was nothing wrong with horizon. It has to be that there is a system of reporting and there has to be a system by which the Crown Prosecution Service in Scotland can rely on established reputations of successful Government agencies as their specialist reporting agencies and that they can rely on the fact that individuals within these agencies meet their legal obligations as they are set out in statute and set out in the code of practice. At the time, there was no reason to doubt the evidence that the Crown was being given. In future, as I have said, we are looking carefully at what has happened here and we are not immune to reflection on what has happened. There has been a miscarriage of justice, of course, and we need to eliminate the risks of miscarriages of justice. We are looking urgently at the specialist prosecution role or specialist reporting agency role of the Post Office. I recognise that innocent people have suffered and people have been convicted where they should not have been. The responsibility for that lies with the Post Office and its repeated failures. I have no problem apologising as a head of a system for which the Post Office has passed. I apologise to all those who have suffered a result of this scandal. I have committed myself to transparency in those matters. I hope that my presence here demonstrates that. I have been very candid about the actions of the Crown and we remain engaged in assisting where we can to remedy the wrongs that have happened here. Lord Advocate, I am very keen to ensure that all members who wish to put a question are able to do so. In order for that to happen, I would be grateful for more concise responses. I would just say to members that I am reviewing the potential impact of carrying on any following business. At this moment, I call Audrey Nicholl to be followed by Murdo Fraser. I wonder if the Lord Advocate might explain how the role of the Crown Office makes Scotland's situation different from the one currently on going in England and whether this will have any practical effect on how Scotland resolves the issue. Lord Advocate, there is a difference in the sense that when the cases were prosecuted in the relevant period up to 2015, those cases were prosecuted by the Post Office in England and Wales, as I understand it, up until about the end of 2015. I might be wrong on these precise dates, but it was a private prosecution that was undertaken by the Post Office in England and Wales. The degree to which that process has impacted on what has happened in England and Wales is one of the major issues that has been looked at by the public inquiry in England and Wales. I am not really in a position to talk about that, so when Williams is looking at that issue significantly. There is a difference in the sense that the Crown Prosecution Service is the sole prosecuting authority in Scotland. The reporting agencies that we rely on in order to inform our work are subject to duties of disclosure under legislation and under a code of practice. I suppose that that is the difference in the sense of what the arrangements were, but I think that it might be that because of the Crown Office in Scotland's role and the need for corroboration in Scotland, it might be that there is a lesser impact of the horizon system on the cases that are now considered miscarriages of justice. Murdo Fraser, to be followed by John Mason. The Lord Advocate has been very open with members this afternoon and should be commended for that. What I fear is missing from her responses so far is an acknowledgement that there is a duty on prosecutors to have confidence in the credibility and quality of the evidence that they present in court. Self-evidently, in those cases, that evidence was flawed and should not have been presented, and therefore there are questions as to the rigor with which prosecutors addressed the evidence presented by the Post Office. I ask her a specific question about her statement. She said in her statement that she gave us dates in May 2013, August 2013 and September 2013 when the Crown Office discussed potential issues with the horizon system that they had been alerted to. How long after that was the decision taken not to take further prosecutorial action? Did that apply just to new cases or also to cases that were already in the system? I think that I said that Scottish prosecutors, following on the assurances that were given by the Post Office via its external lawyers, baristers and officials, were assurances that the system was robust. At no time did that advice from the Post Office change at all. However, because the Crown Office was independent and the Crown Office had been advised that prosecutors in England and Wales had instructed an independent law firm to review all potentially affected, concluded Scottish cases and that that review had revealed no concerns about the accuracy of the evidence submitted and impacted on any of the cases up until that point. It was entirely reasonable for the Crown to accept that, so they were never told of the problem with horizon. They were told in 2013 that they had reviewed all the concluded Scottish cases and there were no concerns about any of the accuracy of the evidence in those cases. Going forward, because there was an indication of a second site report coming forward, the Crown then took the decision to take a cautious approach. After that there were cases that no further prosecutions were taken, cases in which prosecutions were discontinued and prosecutors took great care over what they did. In 2015, when it was clear then that the second report was not forthcoming, it was at that point that the Crown said, that is it, that we are not going to progress with those cases unless we get Crown Council's instruction on the case. What was happened then was that prosecutors looked at all post office cases and reported for Crown Council's instructions with a recommendation to discontinue or to take no action in cases that relied on evidence from the horizon system to prove that the crime had been committed. I know that the answers are long but it is really important to be clear about the fact that, at no time were we told that there was a problem with the reporting agency and we were assured that the previous cases had been looked at prior to 2013 and there were no problems with them. We were assured of that. The Lord Advocate has said that the prosecutors were entitled to take at face value what the post office gave them and, later on, she said that they had to be able to rely on those agencies. Surely, with hindsight, none of those 70 agencies should be completely trusted because no individual is completely trustworthy and surely no agency is completely trustworthy. I think that what I would say is that specialised reporting agencies have been in place for a long time, indeed, I think hundreds of years in some cases. The point in this case is that it leads to horizon and deficiencies in horizon and the fact that those within the post office were not candid about the problems. That is right and that is what has caused the enormous problems here. However, we work with many reporting agencies. Police Scotland, for example, including its legacy forces, has been our main investigative agency for many years in Scotland and Police Scotland carried out the role successfully. There is no reason to doubt the professionalism of Police Scotland in its work, its duty of candor or its duty of revelation. There has to be some system, but if part of that system fails and it clearly has done here, we need to look at what has happened and we need to find out what has gone wrong and remediate where we can. I think that I have made it clear that we are looking seriously at the reporting agency, the post office, and we will consider whether or not that is a reporting agency that we can continue to work with and have confidence in because we rely on those reporting agencies in order to report professionally, with candor and in line with their duties of revelation as set down in law. I call Paul Sweeney to be followed by Graham Simpson. The patronising disposition of unaccountable power was the title of the Bishop of Liverpool's report into the Hillsborough disaster. It seems like an apt title for this egregious miscarriage of justice 2. To build on the point raised by the member for Falkirk East, she commented on the fact that the trauma that was visited on people was significant and that simply sending a letter to people might be damaging in itself. Will the Lord Advocate undertake to look at what the processes are for engaging with the individuals who have been identified by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission of which only around a fifth have come forward and found a more proactive way for how to engage with them, perhaps also considering the potential costs of access to justice, particularly for those who have found themselves bankrupted by the original convictions? Lord Advocate. It is important to recognise the different roles that the prosecution service and the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission have in those cases. The reason for the creation of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission was to be able to provide an independent body that could explore issues such as miscarriages of justice in circumstances like this. The commission itself is the body that really should be approaching individuals who, I accept, many of Will have been severely impacted and traumatised by what has happened. We can make an inquiry of the commission as to what trauma-informed practices they have in place and I can do that, but it really is not for the Crown Office to communicate, to write to and to engage to any degree with those who are very badly affected by the miscarriages of justice in this case. Insofar as the representation that individuals get, the commission brings their case to court and currently all of those whose cases are before the appeal court have counsel instructed. So there is a system in place there for the commission for lawyers to argue the cases for individuals. I do not understand there to be a question of whether or not the individuals would be able to afford representation in the court of criminal appeal. I can be corrected in that but I can find out a bit more about that and write to you about the process and what support mechanisms are available. I think that the important thing might be just for some contact to be made with the commission to find out what it is they are doing to recognise this possibility of the reasons for people not coming forward and what can be done to support people with these types of cases, because there is only 16 cases that people have come forward with and only half of those have been referred by the commission to the court of appeal, so there is a low number from the number of people that were written to. So I hope that that answers the question and anything else about the process and what support can be given through the commission I can explore further in correspondence. I call Graeme Simpson to be followed by Daniel Johnson. Thank you. Is it the Lord Advocate's position that there will be no expedited process in Scotland for clearing those who have been wrongfully convicted? Even if we get such a process in England, there will be nothing like that in Scotland. Is that what she's saying? Lord Advocate, I hope that I answered this correctly. I'm not saying that there's an expedited process in England and Wales for cases going through the court of appeal. In the last few days, the commission itself has explained the challenges in taking on mass appeals through the court of appeal in England and Wales. There are quite a lot of interesting blogs by the Criminal Cases Review Commission in England and Wales. Indeed, one just recently published in July 2023 indicating the challenges on mass appeals through that process. What we also know is that in relation to England and Wales, some of the appeals have been processed, some have been granted and some have been refused. There's similarly a process in Scotland that really does mirror the process for the Criminal Cases Review Commission in England and Wales. Every effort is being made by the court here to expedite the cases where possible. I know that Lord Justice Clark said exactly that at the latest hearing of the case. In relation to other expedited processes, I think that they're distinct and separate from the criminal justice process. However, if there's a quicker way to do this and it's highlighted and it's lawful and the right way to proceed, then that's what will be done. I'm not taking any decision in this case to go slow. Daniel Johnson, to be followed by Stephen Kerr. This scandal hinges on the fact that the post office continued to investigate and indeed prosecute people after it knew that evidence from horizon was flawed. Can I push the Lord Advocate on her timeline? She's saying that it's not until 2019 that she knew that she was told that the evidence was unsand, that she had reason to doubt it. However, that's simply the point that it was proved in the court of law. That is different to knowing and it's different to having reasons to doubt it. Indeed, her own timeline suggests that in 2013 Crown Office said that they needed to carefully consider evidence and in 2015 the Crown Office stopped prosecutions. Indeed, there were public questions published in computer weekly as long as 2009 and questions in many other national newspapers. My question is when did questions regarding the safety of that evidence first arise within the Crown Office and secondly what steps to investigate that did the Crown Office take because that was clearly before 2019. Finally, when did the Crown Office know that the evidence wasn't safe and was that before or after the decision to stop the prosecutions? Lord Advocate. The period in respect of which the prosecution stopped in 2015 is important to make a distinction between the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and what it knew and the work of the reporting agency. The Crown Office was entitled to rely on the reporting agency, which I've referred to previously and the work that it did. It indicated through their experience staff, through witness statements and demonstrations through those witness statements of the operation of horizon and in meetings with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service representatives. In the period 2013 to 2015 there was no problem with the horizon system and that previous cases that had been prosecuted by Scottish prosecutors, there were no concerns about the accuracy of the evidence submitted by the Post Office. Following on 2013, when the issue was raised in meetings because of public concern, Scottish prosecutors were assured that the horizon system was robust and that it would have no impact on the evidence available to Scottish prosecutors and the safety of that evidence. So, in relation to what Scottish prosecutors knew, they did not know through that period of time that 2013 to 2015 that there was any difficulty whatsoever with the horizon system and that continued to be the position of the Post Office thereafter, that there was no problem with the horizon system and that it was only falling upon the adjudication of the courts in England and Wales in 2019 that that was asserted as positively wrong. I think that it is quite clear from the reported decisions from the Court of Criminal Appeal in England and Wales that it was up until 2019 that the Post Office refused to accept that there were problems with the horizon system. It is clear from the reported decisions that that is the case. The Lord Advocate apologised for something on behalf of the Crown Office, but I am at complete loss to understand exactly what this apology is for, because what we have heard for the last 58 minutes, nearly an hour, is one justification after another for what the Crown Office has done. There has been repeated assertions by the Lord Advocate that not every case involving the horizon system is a miscarriage of justice. Since 2019, debates judgment, it has been known fact that horizon was not a reliable source of evidence, it was a flawed, it was a fraud in fact. Is there a presumption behind the comment that she is making about not every case involving horizons and miscarriage of justice? Since 2019, has the Crown Office reviewed every single one of the 73 convictions? Why is the Crown waiting for people to come forward? Why is not the Crown being more proactive in engaging with all of the people that have been impacted by the scandal? It seems to me that, for the last hour, we have just had excuses, frankly. Lord Advocate, I do not accept that. I think that there has to be an understanding of the clear distinction in the roles between the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and the work of the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission. Let me be clear. In the decision of the court in Hamilton, the court of criminal appeal in England recognised that not all cases were horizon cases. In Hamilton, the majority of the cases, the convictions were cost, and a number of cases, the convictions were not cost, because those were not horizon cases. That is a process that the courts in England and Wales have been going through, and it is a process in respect of which we have to bear in mind the courts in Scotland will have to go through. They will have to look at each case individually and determine whether or not it is a horizon case in the sense that it is a miscarriage of justice and the horizon evidence that has been relied on in that case has resulted in a miscarriage of justice. In Scotland, the situation is more complicated because of our rules of corroboration, and in Scotland, what happens in relation to questions of miscarriage of justice moved from the Crown's responsibility to that of the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission, who have undertaken the work that they are doing in relation to the 70 odd cases that are with them. They have written to everybody and it is only appropriate in terms of a separation of roles that the commission does that work. It would be wrong for the Crown to be seen to pursuing individuals who have been and who have asserted to be the subject of the miscarriage of justice. It is just not the way that the system works at all and I am not in any sense suggesting that nothing has gone wrong here. It quite plainly has and I have apologised for the way in which the system has resulted in these unfortunate events. But prosecution stopped in Scotland in 2015 because we couldn't prove that the system was okay, not because we had to prove it and it is simply misunderstanding what the role of the Crown is. It was only became clear in reading the Hamilton decision that that is the case, the stage at which the Court of Criminal Appeal in England and Wales for the first time considered cases of this nature determined the approach to be taken in the concept of what is a horizon case and what is not and decided that certain convictions should be overturned and certain convictions should not be overturned and we know that that has continued to be the process pursued in England and Wales and that will be the process pursued in Scotland until such time matters change, if at all. Nobody is hiding anything here, it's important to understand we didn't know, we weren't told, we're entitled to rely on the reporting agency's assurances and it's very sad indeed that we were misled to the extent that we were and I don't think I can say anything more about it than that. I'll take two further questions, I'll call Ash Ragan to be followed by Kevin Stewart. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The Crown Office had an overview of all the cases that were prosecuted in the Scottish courts so can I ask the Lord Advocate why did this volume of cases amongst the highly vetted sub-postmaster population not trigger concerns as to the veracity of the technical evidence? Lord Advocate, well I think I can only repeat what I've told you, I've said before which is what has happened in this case which is that despite assurances in particular that an independent report which reported that there was no systemic issue with the system in which reported in August 2013 was provided to Scottish prosecutors. Scottish prosecutors in meetings with the post office officials were assured that there was no difficulties with the system, they were assured that there was no difficulties and no concerns about the accuracy of evidence submitted by the post office in relation to concluded cases and that being the situation it's difficult to see what else the Crown could have done and I think I did say in response to this suggestion before when Ms McNeill referred to Mr Munro's points this statement today, these statements today presuppose that the Crown knew that the sub-postmasters were being told by the post office that they were the only ones affected. It fails to recognise that these cases were being dealt across the country, not limited to one locality. Had there been a spike in one area there may have been an identifiable trend but the reality is that many cases were spread out. What has resulted in Ms Kergy's justice here and I can't be clear about this is that horizon was unreliable, the post office was aware of that and yet they failed to properly inform the Crown about it. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I'm very grateful to the Lord Advocate for the statement today and for the length of time that she's taken answering questions this afternoon. I would like to thank her for going into some depth but I'm quite a plain and simple man some would say, Presiding Officer, and we have heard today from the Lord Advocate around about a lack of candor being misled by the post office. Can we take it that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service for a long period of time was told a pack of lies by the post office and can I ask the Lord Advocate if she feels that it was the duty of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to scrutinise the post office or whether that was a job for the UK Government? Lord Advocate, I think that what I can do is answer that in the context of the Crown Prosecution Service in Scotland being supplied with information from a specialist reporting agency that, for many decades, had provided reports to Crown Office, it was a trusted organisation with an established reputation as being one of the most successful government agencies. When it came to the reporting of horizon cases, it proved to be an expert in the horizon system and its operation, its experienced staff provided statements explaining the operation of horizon and they spoke to how it was used to commit criminal offences. At the time that the cases were reported, there was no reason to doubt that evidence. Indeed, the post office obtained an independent report confirming that there were no systemic issues on horizon. It simply could not have been anticipated that the post office, its investigators and its independent auditors could have got it so wrong. This miscarriage of justice is truly exceptional and nothing similar has ever been seen before. Its facts and circumstances are unique. It is incumbent upon a reporting agency to meet its obligations of disclosure under the 2010 legislation and the code of practice of 2011 and previously to this. The disclosure duty on the Crown in relation to what it knew about the horizon system simply was not engaged. There was no information given to the Crown Office that the horizon system was unsafe, so there was no basis at all on which we would be providing evidence to the defence that indicated an undermining of the Crown case or supported the defence case. We were told that the system was reliable. That concludes the ministerial statement. The next item of business is a stage 1 debate on the Visitor Levy Scotland Bill. I will allow a moment or two for front benches to organise themselves.