An Indian-origin ex-manager of a Post Office within the UK, has rejected her former boss’s apology, pointing to how she had been pregnant for 2 months when wrongly imprisoned greater than 12 years in the past after being convicted for a theft.

“I was eight weeks pregnant. They need to apologise to my youngest son. I have not accepted the apologies,” Seema Misra, now 47, instructed BBC.

She was referring to her ex-boss David Smith saying sorry in writing for sending a congratulatory e mail after the previous’s conviction. The apology by Smith, now a former Managing Director on the Post Office, got here throughout Thursday’s hearings for the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, held in London.

“We had my conviction overturned, nobody came at the time to apologise. And now they just suddenly realised, that when they have to appear in a public inquiry, they have to apologise,” Misra stated to BBC.

Misra additionally responded to Smith’s assertion that she was a “test case” for the defective Horizon IT system and the “success” of her case led to “more confidence” within the system.

“How can they do a test on a human being? I am a living creature. I heard that my case had been used as a test case before, but hearing it again and against, it is just annoying. It makes me more and more angry, to be honest,” she remarked.

Her conviction for stealing GBP 75,000 for her Post Office department in Surrey the place she was a sub-postmistress, was quashed in April 2021. The Court of Appeal dominated that she was wrongly jailed.

By then, nonetheless, Misra had already spent four-and-a-half months at south-east England’s female-only Bronzefield jail, the most important such facility in Europe. There, she gave delivery to her second son whereas waring an digital tag.

In March this 12 months, a brand new regulation tabled in British Parliament launched the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill to quash convictions led to by the “erroneous” Horizon proof. The ongoing public inquiry within the case, being carried out in a phased method, is predicted to conclude in July.

Developed by Japan’s Fujitsu, the Horizon system was first rolled out in 1999 to some Post Offices for variable duties similar to accounting and stocktaking. However, it appeared to have vital bugs, which might trigger the system to misreport, typically involving massive sums as within the case of those sub-postmasters.

(With PTI inputs)