The Post Office scandal won’t have escaped Cumnock Chronicle readers in recent weeks.

The excellent ITV drama Mr Bates versus the Post Office propelled this appalling miscarriage of justice back into the national headlines and now, at long last, it looks as though sub-postmasters will get the justice they so richly deserve.

While I agree with those who have said it should not have taken a television drama to generate interest in their plight, it did help to show the human side of this scandal and how it ruined people’s lives, even resulting in suicide in some cases.

For those not fully up to speed on this story, the scandal revolved around the Horizon IT system, which was a digital accounting system first implemented by Fujitsu in UK Post Office branches in 1999.

Ultimately the system, which was meant to simplify work for sub-postmasters, was fatally flawed and was the cause of Post Office employees being found guilty.

Around 3,500 sub-postmasters were wrongly accused and around 900 were wrongfully prosecuted.

The Post Office repeatedly lied and refused to admit that their Horizon system had any problems and regularly told certain sub-postmasters that they were the only ones who had reported any issues.

Reputations were destroyed, families were ripped apart and lives were ruined.

The slow road to justice finally took a turning point in 2019 when a group of former post office employees won a high court case, which brought to light the major flaws in Horizon.

However, as of last month, still only 142 appeal case reviews had been completed out of the 900.

Now finally in 2024, Parliament appears to be on its way to delivering justice on an enormous scale and fully exonerating those convicted.

The plans announced by the Prime Minister and the UK Government do just that, outlining plans to introduce legislation as fast as possible and deliver further compensation as quickly as possible to them.

While the Post Office were responsible for convictions south of the border, in Scotland, prosecutions were handled by the Crown Office.

I had the opportunity to question the Scottish Government’s Lord Advocate in Holyrood on the issue where I highlighted some of those wrongfully convicted, including one individual who has now died.

I made it clear that despite having an independent crown prosecution service, it had failed victims. It was disappointing that the Lord Advocate refused to accept those failures.

We must continue to be fully transparent about the Crown Office’s role in this scandal and be fully aware of what and when they knew about Horizon. Victims deserve nothing less than us all working together to finally end this horrendous stain on our justice system.