A regional daily has issued an unprecedented apology to one of the victims of the sub-postmasters scandal over its coverage of her conviction and jailing.

Jacqueline McDonald, from Broughton, near Preston, was sentenced to 18 months in jail in January 2011 after pleading guilty to charges of theft and false accounting.

However it is now clear that she, among with more than 700 other sub-postmasters, was wrongly convicted as part of the Horizon IT scandal at the Post Office.

Now the Lancashire Post has publicly apologised to Mrs McDonald for its coverage of the case, saying it “will have added to her trauma.”

Mrs McDonald served four-and-a-half months in prison, but her name was eventually cleared just over a decade later.

Last week, the ongoing public inquiry into the affair was told of a claim by Mrs. McDonald that the Post Office-employed investigator in her case had “bullied” her while he was looking into an alleged shortfall of around £94,000 at her branch.

The Post had come in for criticism on social media for its coverage of the case since the wider injustice came to widespread public attention following this month’s ITV drama, “Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office.”

There have been calls from some within the Broughton community for the paper to apologise, with one comment suggesting that the Post should be “first in line” to do so.

Responding to the criticism, editor Vanessa Sims said: “Media outlets don’t very often apologise – and while we stand by our entirely accurate reporting of Jacqueline McDonald’s case in 2011, we are sorry that our coverage will no doubt have compounded her distress at knowing that she had felt compelled to plead guilty to crimes she didn’t commit.

“At the time, the Post was – like many other local newspapers nationwide – publishing a legally sound account of court proceedings involving a sub-postmaster or mistress in which wrongdoing was either admitted or was the conclusion reached by a jury.

“Of course, we now know that Jacqueline’s case was one part of a patchwork of injustice being stitched across the country as a result of the Horizon scandal. However, back in 2011, while it had long been evident to those caught up in the shameful affair that they had been wrongly accused – and even, like Jacqueline, convicted and jailed – that was far from being widely understood.

“At the turn of the 2010s, some specialist national media titles, which had been investigating the allegations made by the Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance (JFSA) – led by the formidable Alan Bates, who gave his name to last week’s ITV dramatisation – were piecing together the puzzle of what is now widely regarded as the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history.

“However, here in Lancashire, there was no local uprising to suggest anything like that had befallen Jacqueline McDonald – nor, as far as we can ascertain, any evidence brought to us asking to investigate such a claim.

“In later years, of course, the facts surrounding her case became clear and the Post has since reported them in detail, both online and in print – and long before the recent increase in public interest in the scandal – including the overturning of her conviction and evidence she submitted to the public inquiry.

“Just today, we have reported more of her written testimony, which was put to the Post Office investigator in her case.

“Jacqueline has the utmost sympathy of everyone here at the Post for everything she has endured and we do sincerely regret that her awful experience included having to see her reputation tarnished in her local paper.”

Vanessa, pictured, told HTFP: “Lancashire Post readers like many others across the country have been touched by the scale of the misjustice in the Horizon scandal.

“They have been shocked by just how many innocent people have found themselves facing financial loss and the full force of the law.”