Sir Keir Starmer needs to explain why he did not intervene in the Horizon Post Office scandal when director of public prosecutions, Nigel Farage has said.
Sir Keir, now the Labour leader, held the position between 2008 and 2013 before moving into politics. His time in the role overlapped part of the period in which Post Office branch managers were convicted because of the Horizon computer system showing that money was missing.
Between 1999 and 2015, 736 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were prosecuted based on information from Horizon. The computer system was later found faulty.
The Post Office, rather than the CPS, brought the prosecutions, 93 of which have been overturned in what has been described as the widest miscarriage of justice in UK legal history. With the scandal back in the headlines after an ITV drama, Sir Keir’s role leading the CPS during some of that period has fallen into the spotlight.
On Monday, Mr Farage, the former Ukip and Brexit Party leader who is honorary president of Reform, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Why did Keir Starmer not intervene in the Horizon scandal when he was director of public prosecutions?
“The story first broke in 2009, yet the prosecutions continued until 2015. Given the mounting concern at the time and over 700 cases, he has serious questions to answer.”
There was no immediate comment from Sir Keir’s office about Mr Farage’s remarks.
On Monday, the Labour leader called for prosecution powers to be stripped from the Post Office and previous convictions to be looked at again.
Speaking during a visit to Loughborough, in the East Midlands, he said: “I think that the prosecution should be taken out of the hands of the Post Office and given to the Crown Prosecution Service.
“I used to run the Crown Prosecution Service, we’ve prosecuted for other departments, we can do it here – that should be done straight away. And these convictions, the remaining convictions, need to be looked at en masse.”
“The Government could pass legislation, so obviously we’d support that if they did. It might be possible to get these cases back before the Court of Appeal quickly – I’ve done that when I was a prosecutor – but whichever way it’s done, these convictions need to be looked at.”
