The prime minister said he would back an investigation into revoking the CBE of former Post Office boss Paula Vennells.
Calls for her honour to be removed have intensified, with a petition passing one million signatures since the release of ITV drama series Mr Bates Vs The Post Office.
The Horizon scandal saw more than 700 branch managers convicted of theft or fraud after a faulty IT system made it look like money was missing from their shops.
Ms Vennells, who ran the Post Office while it routinely denied there was a problem with its software, has previously said she is ‘truly sorry’ for the ‘suffering’ caused to subpostmasters wrongly convicted of offences.
The scandal has been described as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
The petition, on website 38Degrees, is addressed to chair of the Forfeiture Committee Sir Chris Wormald, and was initially launched three years ago.
Rishi Sunak’s official spokesperson said: ‘The prime minister shares the public’s feeling of outrage on this issue. He would strongly support the Forfeiture Committee if it chose to review the case. It is a decision for the committee, rather than the government.’
Speaking from Accrington in Lancashire on Monday, Mr Sunak said he wanted to speed up the compensation process for victims.
‘People should know that we are on it and we want to make this right, that money has been set aside,’ he said.
‘We will do everything we can to make this right for the people affected. It is simply wrong what happened. They shouldn’t have been treated like this.’
Since the four-part programme starring Toby Jones was broadcast, it has been reported some 50 new potential victims of the scandal have approached lawyers.
Another 65 new petitions have launched on Change.org since the start of the year, with 20 calling for Ms Vennells to lose her CBE.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed on Friday it was ‘investigating potential fraud offences’ – but noted this probe was launched in January 2020.
Justice Secretary Alex Chalk spoke with Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake on Monday about helping the wrongly convicted branch managers clear their names.
Mr Hollinrake recently said Ms Vennells, who was the CEO of the Post Office between 2012 and 2019, should consider handing voluntarily handing back her CBE.
Conservative backbencher David Davis and Labour MP Kevan Jones – who has long been at the forefront of calls to remove Ms Vennells’s CBE – are pressing for an emergency debate in the House of Commons on the issue as politicians return from the Christmas break.
Labour leader and former head of the Crown Prosecution Service Sir Keir Starmer called for the remaining convictions to be ‘looked at en masse’.
The government recently announced the victims of the scandal will be offered a lump sum of £600,000 each in compensation.
By the end of last year 93 managers had their convictions quashed, with 54 convictions upheld, withdrawn, or refused permission to appeal.
One hearing in April 2022 saw 39 convictions overturned at once.
But a long-awaited inquiry revealed more than 30 victims died while still waiting for justice, and others were driven to bankruptcy.
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