Post Office case highlights further software flaws pre-Horizon

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has referred a third conviction to the Court of Appeal following emerging evidence that the accounting software Capture, which preceded the flawed Horizon system, could also produce errors. Narinder Aujla, 61, served as the sub-postmaster at the Caledonia Post Office branch in Dudley from June 1991 to April 1998. He faced conviction for theft and spent four months in prison after failing to reconcile £10,000 of apparent losses linked to the system's installation.

Around a year following the implementation of Capture, Mr Aujla noticed inconsistencies in the balance sheets. Despite his best efforts, he could not determine the cause of these discrepancies. In the early stages, he managed to offset minor losses by injecting his own money into the accounts, but higher losses made this approach untenable. The Post Office helpline advised him to 'roll the losses over' to subsequent weeks, yet this only escalated the overall figures.

In the Autumn of 1996, an audit revealed a £10,000 deficit at Mr Aujla's branch, prompting an investigation into the missing funds. During questioning about this loss, he maintained he had no knowledge of its origin. Subsequently, he was convicted on five counts of theft in a trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court in March 1998 and sentenced to four months in prison. After his release, the Post Office demanded repayment for the alleged losses, which Mr Aujla settled in instalments.

Remarkably, he has never sought to appeal his conviction. However, after becoming aware of serious concerns related to Capture during the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, Mr Aujla applied to the CCRC in June 2025. Following their investigation, the CCRC discovered that findings from independent inquiries into Capture, including reports from Kroll Associates UK Ltd and the MFC Partnership, suggest a plausible chance that the Court of Appeal will conclude that prosecuting Mr Aujla constituted an abuse of process.

CCRC Chair Dame Vera Baird KC remarked “We have had a number of pre-Horizon cases, that is those which relate to accounting systems placed in branches by the Post Office prior to the now notoriously defective Horizon one, which it seems might similarly have generated false losses later blamed on post office staff.” She further stated “In Mr Aujla’s case, the new evidence, considered alongside the findings of the independent reports into Capture, gives rise to a real possibility that the Court of Appeal will conclude his prosecution was an abuse of process."

The cases of Aujla and others serve to illustrate the devastating impact that wrongful convictions can impose on individuals, affecting their livelihoods and reputations for years. Currently, the CCRC is reviewing other cases linked to the Capture software as part of its ongoing commitment to address potential miscarriages of justice. They have received 40 applications related to cases before the rollout of the Horizon system, with four convictions thus far referred for appeal.