Please find below a copy of Kevan’s Statement:

After years of cover-ups and denials from the Government and from the Post Office, I am pleased to see that today, 39 subpostmasters, wrongly accused have had their convictions overturned.

This whole affair is a national scandal which has led to innocent people being jailed and hundreds of other hard-working individuals losing their livelihood and good names.

Having campaigned on this issue for a number of years, supporting the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, along with Lord Arbuthnot and Andrew Bridgen MP, we have been highlighting that evidence was being hidden from the Courts and our Justice System in order to protect the Post Office.

Even when the Post Office and Government Ministers knew the Horizon System was flawed, they covered it up and spent hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to defend the indefensible whilst allowing individuals to go to prison and others having their lives ruined.

A full public enquiry now needs to be launched into this scandal rather than the sham inquiry that has been announced by the Government.

A proper compensation scheme needs to be introduced to compensate all those wrongly accused, who have had their lives turned upside down, including my constituent, Tom Brown.

The Prime Minister should now issue an apology to all sub-postmasters affected and ensure that those in the Post Office and Government involved in the cover up are held to account.