The conviction of a former sub post mistress, who was falsely accused of embezzling Post Office funds and later died in 2022, has been finally overturned.
Caren Lorimer was convicted of embezzlement in 2009 after an audit uncovered a £38,000 shortfall at her Post Office branch. Lorimer, one of hundreds wrongly prosecuted based on inaccurate information from Horizon computer system, died from cancer in 2022.
Her husband David Lorimer told the BBC it "meant the world to him" but was sad his late wife never witnessed the day.
"I’m really, really happy and I’m really sad that Caren’s not here but she’ll know. She’ll know," he said. "She’d be so proud of everything we’ve done her. She’ll be happy up there just now."
Her daughter Laura Miller, who was 25 when her mother was convicted, said, "I find it most upsetting that she died a convicted criminal. That can’t be undone. I’m happy she’s exonerated but she died a convicted criminal. Something my mum hadn’t done and she’s taken it with her. She knew all along she’d done nothing wrong. So did we.
"Now it’s just the proof that she really didn’t do it."
Lorimer had worked at the New Farm Loch Post Office, Kilmarnock, for 17 years but an audit in 2008 uncovered an apparent £38,000 shortfall in the Ayrshire branch. She pled guilty to embezzlement to avoid going to prison and was sentenced to 300 hours of community service in 2009 and forced to pay the Post Office £15,000.
Lorimer’s name would likely have been cleared by the Scottish Parliament’s legislation once it receives royal assent.
But her family had already started the process to have her conviction quashed with news of their success emerging just days before an appeal hearing scheduled for Friday (7). She is the seventh person in Scotland to have their name cleared through that route.
Simon Hannah
