I Was 8-Week Pregnant”: Indian-Origin Woman Who Was Wrongly Jailed In UK

London: 

An Indian-origin former manager of a Post Office in England wrongly jailed while pregnant has rejected the apology of a former boss of the government-owned entity during an ongoing public inquiry into the accounting scandal.

Seema Misra, now 47, had her conviction quashed in April 2021 as the Court of Appeal ruled that she had been wrongly imprisoned over 12 years ago after being accused of stealing GBP 75,000 from her Post Office branch in Surrey where she was the sub-postmistress.

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

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

“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, speaking to reporters later, Ms Misra rejected the apology which comes many 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,” Ms Misra told 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 said.