Post Office Horizon scandal: Scotland’s top prosecutor apologises ‘profusely’ to victims

Scotland’s chief prosecutor, Dorothy Bain, told Scottish Horizon victims ‘I stand beside you in your pursuit of justice’. Photograph: Ken Jack/Getty Images

Scotland’s most senior law officer has apologised “profusely” to the victims of the Horizon scandal, while insisting it is “simply wrong” to suggest that prosecutors in the country pursued cases in the face of reported problems with the discredited software system.

In a statement to the Holyrood chamber on Tuesday afternoon, the lord advocate Dorothy Bain directly addressed those who were wrongfully convicted on the basis of evidence from the faulty digital accounting system, in what has been described as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in UK history, affecting up to 1,000 post office operatives across the UK.