A LEADING campaigner in the Post Office Horizon scandal has told Eastern Eye racism played a part in her horrific ordeal, but hoped her determination to fight back will change people’s perception of Asian women.
An inquiry into the wrongful prosecution of more than 900 sub-postmasters due to incorrect information from Fujitsu’s accounting software Horizon concluded on Tuesday (17), as Eastern Eye went to press.
Seema Misra, 48, was wrongly imprisoned in 2010 after being accused of stealing £75,000 from her Post Office branch in Surrey, where she was the subpostmistress. Documents from her case showed the investigator categorised her as “Indian/ Pakistani Types, ie Asian, etc”.
It was later revealed that staff were told to racially classify suspects, including “negroid types, ie West Indian, Nigerian, African, Caribbean etc”. It also included codes for “Arabian/ Egyptian types, Chinese/Japanese types” and “dark-skinned European types”.
“I definitely believe the Post Office was institutionally racist,” Misra said on Monday (16) from Aldwych House, where she was attending the inquiry.
She noted she was referred to as a “test case” by David Smith, former managing director of the Post Office.
“They probably thought this Indian lady will lose the case, go to prison, and then will probably hide away and won’t speak out,” said Misra.
“In our culture, if somebody goes to prison, they lose their self-respect. It’s very difficult to go back into society.”
Misra, who was jailed while two months pregnant, said had she not been expecting her second child, she would have ended her own life “for sure”.
At least four deaths by suicide have been recorded among those caught up in the scandal Read More….