Unlike the familiar tales from hundreds of other sub-postmasters, this one isn’t about shortfalls in branch accounts.
The prosecution claimed Garbutt was concealing his theft by making false declarations on the amount of cash he was holding in his Post Office safe. The suggestion being that he was requesting more than was needed and that that there was never £16,000 in the safe on the morning of the murder because he’d stolen it.
Two Post Office witnesses testified against him, relying on data from the Horizon computer system. One investigator said the amount of cash he’d been requesting for his branch account was suspicious and indicative of fraud.
Garbutt’s lawyers now argue, in essence, that key parts of the Horizon-related evidence cannot be trusted given what’s emerged from the public inquiry into the scandal and fresh evidence from other sources.
Diana’s mother made clear in an interview earlier this year she believes her son-in-law is guilty saying he was “jumping on the Horizon bandwagon”.
But Garbutt’s supporters say, given all the evidence and discrepancies that have been uncovered over the years, he never got a fair trial and it’s time for a wider look at his case.
“We believe that fresh evidence and other important developments that have come to light since the original trial, now mean that Mr Garbutt’s conviction is not safe,” says his solicitor Martin Rackstraw from Russell-Cooke, who along with James Sturman KC have been representing Garbutt for some years.
