Man cleared after Confessing to Post Office Theft to Protect Mother

A man who falsely confessed to Post Office theft to protect his mother from going to prison has been cleared.

Ravinder Naga pleaded guilty to stealing £35,000 after auditors found an alleged shortfall at Belville Street Post Office in Greenock, Scotland.

On August 22, 2024, appeal judges overturned his conviction.

In 2009, auditors turned up at his mother’s post office and uncovered an alleged shortfall.

Mr Naga said he told his mother to tell investigators he had stolen the money to “buy some time”.

At the time, they had no idea the shortfalls were caused by the faulty Horizon IT system.

The “missing” money never appeared and Mr Naga subsequently pleaded 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.

He said the family feared his mother would not 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.”

He and his mother returned to their former Post Office for the first time in 15 years.

The roof had collapsed and it looked like it had been ransacked.

For this mother Gurbash Kaur Naga, the Post Office’s state 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.”

Mr 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.

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.”

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

Mr Naga is still 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.”