Post Office scandal: former employee who misplaced house and despatched to jail

She was amongst tons of of Post Office staff wrongly branded thieves and fraudsters over obvious account shortfalls created by defective pc system Horizon.

Now Janet Skinner, 52, from Hull, has spoken of her ordeal, having been falsely accused of stealing £60,000 from the Post Office she ran – ensuing within the lack of her house and a stint in a drug-infested jail the place she was pressured to rubbed shoulders with little one killers. 

The mom served three months of a nine-month sentence following a roundup of 230 former postmasters and postmistresses jailed in one of many biggest miscarriages of justice in Britain’s current historical past.

A four-part sequence, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, has just lately aired on ITV and focuses on the real-life story of accused postmaster Alan Bates, now 68, who was a key determine in bringing one of many scandal to the sunshine.

Janet, whose testimony helped kind the plot of the mini-series, hopes the big-money drama will reveal the true human influence of the Horizon scandal on workers. 

Janet Skinner (pictured), 52, from Hull, has spoken of her ordeal after being unjustly accused of stealing £60,000 from the Post Office she ran (Photo: Shutterstock)

Mr Bates vs The Post Office relies on the real-life story of postmaster Alan Bates, performed by Toby Jones (pictured within the function), certainly one of tons of of harmless subpostmasters working within the UK who was accused and later charged of theft, fraud and false accounting resulting from a defective IT system

The former postmistress was despatched to jail in 2007 over an alleged £59,000 shortfall at her publish workplace in Hull, earlier than she was launched three months afterward an digital tag and her conviction ultimately repealed in April 2021. 

Janet claims the scandal has ruined her life, as she is now disabled and reliant on advantages resulting from her funds being crushed within the wake of the wrongful fraud accusation. 

Recounting her story to The Sun, she defined that she was working as a postmistress in Bransholme when Horizon was launched by the Post Office and Royal Mail.

Already suspicious that the flawed supercomputer was making errors and figuring out obvious anomalies in money passing over-the-counter, Janet had began to make use of her personal written ledger system. 

But, when bosses accused her of stealing in 2006, she had her keys revoked, was suspended from her department and was ultimately taken to Hull crown courtroom accused of false accounting and theft.

She revealed that her lawyer, Karl Turner, now a Labour MP in Hull, suggested her to plead responsible in a bid to keep away from jailtime.

She stated: ‘It was in opposition to every part I knew was true, however I adopted the recommendation. That was a horrible mistake.’

Standing within the dock at Hull crown courtroom the next yr, Janet, who was 35 on the time, was sentenced to 9 months in jail. 

Former subpostmasters Janet Skinner, Seema Misra and Tracy Felstead exterior the Royal Courts of Justice, London (Photo: PA)

Within hours, the mom was transported to certainly one of Britain’s hardest prisons – New Hall jail in Wakefield, Yorks – the place Rose West, spouse of late serial killer Fred West, is a present inmate.

Janet described how, for the primary couple of weeks, she went into shock, and is unable to recall what her expertise was like upon settling in. 

She admitted: ‘I used to be on suicide look ahead to a few weeks. I’d misplaced every part. There have been ladies in there for violent crimes, for all times. Drugs have been rife. They might get their fingers on something they needed.’

The mom defined that she was distraught to be other than daughter Toni, 17, and son Matthew, 14, whom she turned quickly estranged to whereas in jail. 

She was then moved to a different ladies’s jail, Drake Hall, in Staffordshire, after a number of weeks, the place she admitted to having to start getting used to her new ‘powerful’ atmosphere. 

The former Post Office worker stated that though she was reminded of her so-called crimes by unbeknown fellow inmates, a sympathetic jail officer professed that Janet mustn’t have been locked up. 

In April 2007, Janet was launched – however her humiliation and ordeal have been removed from over, having been instructed to put on an ankle monitor and abide by a 6pm to 7am curfew for the rest of her sentence. 

In lower than a yr, Janet’s state of affairs took a twisted flip when she discovered herself again within the dock and going through a 5 yr stretch for failing to repay ‘proceeds of crime.’

Paula Vennells was the CEO of the Post Office between 2012 and 2019, whereas the agency was falsely prosecuting subpostmasters on the idea of poor information from the Horizon IT system

As the ITV drama is pulling in an viewers of thousands and thousands, Janet desires the general public to know in regards to the callous method victims have been handled by grasping bosses 

The defeated mom had been left with no cash, no home and no earnings, nonetheless, ultimately, the fees have been put aside.

Soon the Horizon scandal began to unravel, with dozens of convicted and jailed ex-Post Office workers dropped at justice by a marketing campaign led by Alan Bates.

After years of campaigning, some 86 of them, together with Janet, had convictions quashed.

Now, because the ITV drama is pulling in an viewers of thousands and thousands, Janet desires the general public to know in regards to the callous method victims have been handled by grasping bosses.

Janet is looking for former Post Office chief govt Paula Vennells to be stripped of her 2019 CBE, who she claims has benefited from the scandal whereas lower-level staff have suffered and had lives ruined. 

She stated: ‘It ought to be eliminated immediately and it should not cease there. This has by no means simply been about compensation, it has at all times been about justice.’