Post Office’s desperate bid to stop Capture conviction being quashed

The Post Office has asked judges to rely on 30-year-old newspaper reports in its bid to stop a sub-postmaster’s conviction being overturned because it cannot find its own evidence, The i Paper can reveal.

Steve Marston, 72, was convicted of theft and false accounting offences in 1998, after suffering accounting problems following his use of Capture, a primitive and faulty piece of software that predates the Horizon system.

His case, alongside that of sub-postmistress Patricia Owen, is now being considered by the Court of Appeal following a referral from the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the miscarriages of justice watchdog, with a full hearing later this year.

The Post Office is attempting to block Mr Marston’s conviction from being overturned – but is unable to produce the original evidence it used to prosecute him.

A spokesperson told The i Paper the Post Office believes it has an “obligation” to respond to Mr Marston’s appeal, and any others, on a “legal and factual basis”.

Post Office says Capture evidence not ‘essential’ for prosecution

Over the past two years, The i Paper has revealed how the Post Office was well aware of bugs and faults in Capture, but prosecuted sub-postmasters who suffered shortfalls while using it anyway.

Mr Marston has long insisted that he “never stole a penny”, but was pressured into pleading guilty to criminal offences by Post Office investigators who said the computer system could not have made mistakes.

When first approached in 2024, the Post Office said it did not have any records of what happened to Mr Marston and other sub-postmasters with similar claims about Capture.

In a Respondent’s Notice served last month and obtained by The i Paper, Post Office barrister Simon Baker KC said his client has still not been able to locate any of the original prosecution files to establish what evidence was used to prosecute Mr Marston.

The Post Office also admitted that because of Capture’s numerous bugs and faults, any prosecution that relied upon it for evidence should be considered unsafe.

However, Baker said his client will still be opposing Mr Marston’s appeal, set to take place later this year, claiming that it is not clear that Capture evidence was “essential” to the prosecution.

The Post Office has also told appelate judges that “in the absence of any of the case papers”, the Court should rely on two stories which appeared in the Blackpool Gazette and Heywood Advertiser about Mr Marston’s case in 1998 as “the substantive basis of the prosecution”.

‘Third-hand stories’

One September 1998 Gazette story, citing court reporting, that was cited by the Post Office filing states: “During police interviews Marston admitted stealing around £6,000 but was adamant that the other £74,000 was partly stolen by a previous employer or due to genuine Post Office losses.”

The Post Office argues that this shows an admission of guilt.

But Mr Marston disputes ever making such an admission, saying the article is factually incorrect as police never had any involvement in the case.

This is something the Post Office has conceded may be an error on the part of the court reporter.

The Respondent’s Notice reads: “If the Appellant [Mr Marston] is correct in his recollection that there was no police interview, it is easy to see how The Gazette’s court reporter hearing reference to an admission in an interview might mistakenly assume that it was a police interview.”

Mr Marston told The i Paper: “Basing so much of their case on newspaper articles is ludicrous.

“One of them says I was interviewed by the police which never happened.

“How can the rest be taken as read? They are basically relying on third-hand stories.”

David Banks, journalist and media law consultant, said it was “unusual” for a court to be asked to rely on historic newspaper reports due to a lack of original prosecution files.

“A court report is a snapshot of what a reporter sees and hears that particular day, and what their newsdesk feels is important to their readership,” he told The i Paper.

“I would never say it is a complete and definitive record of proceedings, it simply couldn’t be.

“It isn’t proof of the actual allegations.”

The issue is likely to be scrutinised by the panel of judges at the Court of Appeal, led by Lord Justice Edis, at a full hearing later this year.

Banks added: “I will be interested to see what the judges make of it.

“I would have thought any judge familiar with newspaper processes would give it short shrift.”

A Post Office spokesperson said: “We want all unsafe convictions to be overturned and are doing all we can to ensure appeals are heard as quickly as possible.

“This is entirely a decision for the Court once they have considered all relevant information, and [the] Post Office will welcome their considered guidance.

“We will continue to participate fully and transparently in the process of assisting Mr Marston, Ms Owen’s family and the Court where we can, and we look forward to a hearing date being set by the Court as soon as they are able to do so.”

The irony of the strategy

The Post Office’s apparent faith in newspaper reporting in Mr Marston’s case represents a remarkable shift from its previous position on journalism.

The public inquiry into the Horizon scandal heard how the Post Office repeatedly smeared whistleblowers and attempted to discredit media reporting for years.

Bill Goodwin, investigations editor at Computer Weekly – which first broke the Horizon story in 2009 – said his publication frequently received “bullying letters” from the Post Office denying their stories and demanding to know their sources.

BBC News reported that in the leadup to a key Panorama documentary in 2015, Post Office bosses sent legal threats and called up senior managers in an attempt to stop it being aired.