During Thursday’s hearings for the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry in London, former Post Office Managing Director David Smith apologised for a congratulatory electronic mail he despatched after Misra’s conviction.

“It was intended to be a congratulatory email to the team, knowing that they had worked hard on the case,” Smith mentioned in his written proof to the inquiry.

“However, knowing what I do now, it is evident that my email would have caused Seema Misra and her family substantial distress to read and I would like to apologise for that… Even if this had been a correct conviction, I would never think that it was ‘brilliant news’ for a pregnant woman to go to prison and I am hugely apologetic that my email can be read as such,” he mentioned.

“However, seeing this email in the light of what I know now, I understand the anger and the upset that it will have caused and sincerely apologise for that,” he added.

But, talking to reporters later, Misra rejected the apology which comes a few years after her ordeal.

“I was eight weeks pregnant – they need to apologise to my youngest son. It was terrible. I haven’t accepted the apologies,” Misra instructed the BBC.

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

Misra was despatched to Bronzefield jail in south-east England and served four-and-a-half months, later giving start to her second son carrying an digital tag.

Smith instructed the inquiry that Misra had been used as a “test case” and the success of the case led to extra confidence within the defective Horizon IT accounting system.

“How can they do a test on a human being? I’m a living creature. I heard that my case had been used as a test case before. But hearing it again and again, it’s just annoying. It makes me more and more angry, to be honest,” Misra instructed ‘Sky News’ regarding his proof.

The UK authorities, which formally owns Post Office Ltd, has paid out hundreds of thousands in compensation to a whole bunch of sub-postmasters – a lot of them of Indian heritage – impacted by the defective Horizon software program.

Earlier this yr, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged motion within the historic scandal which wrongly accused sub-postmasters of fraud.

Last month, a brand new legislation tabled in Parliament launched the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill, a blanket exoneration to quash convictions led to by misguided Horizon proof. A public inquiry within the case, underway in a phased method, is anticipated to conclude in July.

The controversial Horizon system, developed by the Japanese firm Fujitsu, was first rolled out in 1999 to some submit workplaces for variable duties, together with accounting and stocktaking. However, it appeared to have vital bugs, which may trigger the system to misreport, typically involving giant sums as within the case of those sub-postmasters.