Man who confessed to Post Office theft to protect mum cleared

A man who falsely confessed to stealing money from his mother's post office to protect her from going to prison has said he shed tears of relief when his conviction was quashed.

Ravinder Naga pleaded guilty to stealing £35,000 after auditors discovered an alleged shortfall at Belville Street Post Office in Greenock - but appeal judges overturned his conviction on Thursday.

He is the eighth victim of the Post Office Horizon scandal to be cleared through the court system in Scotland.

He told BBC Scotland News he would not feel like he had justice until everyone involved had justice.

In 2009 auditors turned up at the post office where his mother was the sub-postmistress, and uncovered an alleged shortfall.

Mr Naga, from Port Glasgow, said he told his mum to tell investigators he had stolen the money to "buy some time".

They had no idea at the time that the Horizon IT system had bugs and errors that caused phantom shortfalls.

The "missing" money never appeared and the father-of-two ended up pleading guilty to theft.

He was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and the family lost their business.

Mr Naga said he caught Tuberculosis while carrying out his community service and struggled to get work in the years that followed. But he doesn't regret taking the blame.

He said the family feared his mum wouldn't have survived a potential prison sentence:

Mr Naga said: "I feel if I hadn't done what I'd done 15 years ago, I wouldn't be sitting here now getting my conviction overturned.

"I'd have been sitting here now getting a letter saying that my dead mum was being exonerated, because that's the effect it would have had on the family."

The Post office roof has now collapsed and it looks like it has been ransacked

Ravinder believes his mother would not have survived a prison sentence

On Monday he and his mother returned to their former Post Office for the first time in 15 years. It took a locksmith to get in.

The roof had collapsed and it looked like it had been ransacked. But there were still pockets of normality - greetings cards neatly stacked on shelves and some post office signs still intact.

But for his mum, Gurbash Kaur Naga, the state of their former Post Office represented the toll the Horizon scandal had taken on people: "Look around the building. I think that's how people's lives are as well.

"Where do you start clearing up your life now? It's not going to be done in a day."

Ravinder Naga did not know whether he would be included in legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament to automatically clear victims of the Horizon scandal because he was not the sub-postmaster.

In the end appeal judges quashed his conviction.

Ravinder Naga and his mother had not been back to their Post office for 15 years

Mr Naga said he was grateful to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission for examining his case but said if it was not for his solicitor Greg Cunningham he might have given up on his fight for justice.

Mr Cunningham said he believed Mr Naga was innocent as soon as they met: "I knew in the first five minutes of speaking with Ravinder Naga and his mother that their story was true and the conviction was false.

"Mr Naga’s case was unique in Scotland in as far as I am aware. His case highlights how the post office scandal did not only affect the sub-postmasters but their families too."

"Mr Naga is innocent in every sense of the word. Mr Naga vs The Post Office would be an emotional watch and a story worth telling."

Ravinder Naga will now be entitled to compensation but said he would still fight for his mother to receive what she was entitled to after losing a business built up over years.

And he remains conscious that some people died before they could be cleared: “I've not had justice yet, because not everybody’s had justice. We haven't brought anybody back to life.”

A Post Office spokesperson said: “We are truly sorry for the suffering caused by Post Office’s past actions.

"We are doing all we can to help victims get answers and to put things right, as far as that can ever be possible.”