Postmaster guilty of murdering his wife makes fourth attempt at appeal

A sub-postmaster who was convicted of the murder his wife is hoping that evidence  from the Post Office inquiry will exonerate him. 

Robin Garbutt, 57, has spent the last 12 years behind bars after being convicted in 2011 of killing his postmistress wife Diana above their Post Office in Melsonby, North Yorkshire. 

A jury ruled Garbutt was guilty for killing his wife in March 2020 over fears that she was having an affair and worries that his theft of thousands of pounds from the Post Office was about to be uncovered. 

Garbutt's legal team is now claiming that evidence of the faultiness of the Horizon IT system should shed some doubt on his conviction, in this 'final roll of the dice'. 

His lawyers have applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which deals with miscarriages of justice, to have his case sent back to the Court of Appeal. 

Evidence from the Horizon accounting system was used at his trial to show that Garbutt was stealing money to fund a lavish lifestyle. 

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The convicted killer claimed an intruder was responsible for murdering his wife, an account the judge called 'ludicrous'. 

During his trial Garbutt said it was armed robbers who attacked his wife, claiming the raider entered with a gun telling him 'don't do anything stupid we've got your wife'.

She was found having been hit on the head with a metal bar in her bed in the flat above the post office they ran together. 

Garbutt's supporters claim that without the Post Office's reliance on Horizon for evidence, a large part of his motivation for killing his wife disappears.

Campaigners have also said there was no forensic evidence linking the killer to the murder weapon, with the iron bar only being found by police two days later, while evidence over the time Mrs Garbutt died is also contested.

While Garbutt said the robbery happened at 8.30am, the prosecution said the postmistress was killed in the middle of the night before he opened the Post Office as normal.

This has since been disputed as no customers noticed anything odd in his behaviour.

All the convictions secured by the Post Office between 1999 and 2015 were overturned by a law passed in May. 

However, efforts to appeal against Garbutt's conviction have failed to get off the ground as the prosecution in his case did not rely entirely on Horizon data. 

This will be his fourth attempt at trying to appeal his conviction. 

In an interview this year, Mrs Garbutt's mother had slammed Garbutt, claiming he was just trying to 'jump on the Horizon bandwagon'. She has also previously said that she thinks he killed her daughter. 

She said: 'It's obvious to anyone that Robin is taking advantage of the Horizon scandal to gain publicity. I don't believe he's going to get far with it.' 

His solicitor, Martin Rackstraw, from Russell-Cooke, said: 'We believe that fresh evidence and other important developments that have come to light since the original trial now mean that Garbutt's conviction is not safe.'

Kevin Hollinrake, an MP and former post office minister, has written a letter of support. 'I can't speculate whether Robin Garbutt is guilty or innocent, but I think we all want to make sure that people when they go through the justice system get a fair hearing,' he told the BBC.