Disgraceful how these people have been treated. I hope they sue those responsible for every penny they can get. Peoples lives and livelihoods have been ruined.
On the article I linked to there was a figure mentioned for however many people settled in a previous case but when I worked it out the average compensation was only about £20K
I can only assume that those cases were for lesser convictions rather than people who went to prison.
I would hope that some of these people get Mega bucks compo to truly compensate them, imaging you have borrowed money to start the business then up losing your business / job and still have to pay the loans plus missing money.
You are now unemployed and effectively unemployable in any position of trust so can only get menial low paid jobs.
Your family & friends may also doubt you but the local community all have you marked down as a thief so whenever you walk down the road or go shopping or to the pub for a pint you know everyone is thinking "That's the bloke who stole money from the post office he ran", your honour and reputation is zero.
And then there's the ones who actually served prison time.
There needs to be an investigation here to establish who knew what and who ordered documents / files to be disposed of, clearly this was a cover up and those responsible must be guilty of some sort of corruption law for burying the facts, those fuckers need to be held accountable and serve prison time