Victims of the Horizon scandal take intention at ex-Post Office chief
- Former subpostmistress Jo Hamilton calls on Ms Vennells to offer again CBE
Victims of the Horizon scandal have taken intention at ex-Post Office chief Paula Vennells as they relive the anxious wait to be arrested once they had been wrongly accused of theft and fraud.
More than 700 postmasters and postmistresses had been wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting between 1999 and 2015 because of the defective Horizon IT system.
The scandal is seen as one of many UK’s greatest miscarriages of justice and has gained current nationwide consideration over current days due to Mr Bates Vs The Post Office airing on ITV.
Jo Hamilton, 66, who’s depicted by Bafta-winning Monica Donlan in ITV’s four-part drama, has accused Ms Vennells of getting ‘no ethical compass’.
Ms Hamilton, who now works as a part-time cleaner, has known as on the previous Post Office chief to offer again the CBE she was awarded in 2019 for companies to the organisation.
Ex-Post Office chief govt Paula Vennells has come below growing stress to offer again the CBE she was awarded in 2019 following ITV’s four-part drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office
Jo Hamilton, 66, who’s depicted by Bafta-winning Monica Donlan in ITV’s four-part drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, has accused Ms Vennells of getting ‘no ethical compass’
‘You’d suppose anybody with an ethical compass would give it again,’ she mentioned
‘She didn’t bodily prosecute us, I’m undecided when she knew, however when she did discover out, why didn’t she say let’s draw a line below this and kind it out.
‘But no, they fought us and dragged it out for 10 years – that’s the crime.’
Hamilton misplaced her put up workplace in South Warnborough, Hampshire, after she was accused of stealing £36,000.
Pensioner Pamela Stubbs is portrayed by Downton Abbey star Lesley Nicol in Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
Ms Stubbs, who was left in tears when she watched a screening of the present, instructed how she was left anxiously ready to be arrested.
Speaking to Bracknell News, she added: ‘The Post Office determined that I used to be only one outdated woman working the department alone.
‘What they did not realise is that I used to be a stroppy outdated lady and wasn’t going to collapse.’
Pamela Stubbs was suspended and stripped of her put up workplace after glitches within the new Horizon IT system claimed she had ‘misplaced’ £27,000. She is portrayed within the new drama by Lesley Nicol
Mrs Stubbs was suspended and stripped of her put up workplace after glitches within the new Horizon IT system claimed she had ‘misplaced’ £27,000.
She was by no means instructed bosses privately suspected losses at Barkham Post Office in Berkshire had been ‘associated’ to issues with the pc software program.
When Ms Stubbs refused to pay the cash, she was kicked out of the enterprise she had run for 23 years – together with ten by herself after her husband died – in 2010.
The pensioner, from Wokingham, was despatched a invoice each month for her ‘debt’, and the Post Office even mentioned it might take a lower of her earnings from any future jobs.
A felony investigator got here spherical to interview her, however regardless of being unable to show she had taken the cash, the enterprise was by no means returned to her.
However, Ms Stubbs didn’t find yourself being among the many staff who had been arrested or prosecuted.
She believes this was as a result of she saved paper data of every transaction as a result of issues she was having with the Horizon system.
Ms Stubbs ultimately gave proof within the profitable courtroom case in 2021 that led to 39 convictions being quashed.
Penny Williams was wrongly accused of embezzling £20,000 at her put up workplace in Manaccan, on the Lizard, in Cornwall, and remains to be ready for compensation
Former postmaster Alan Bates, who’s portrayed by Toby Jones within the new drama, led and received the preliminary authorized battle after himself falling sufferer to the faults
Penny Williams was wrongly accused of embezzling £20,000 at her put up workplace in Manaccan, on the Lizard, in Cornwall, and remains to be ready for compensation.
She was declared bankrupt after shedding the put up workplace and the pub she had been working within the village since 1997.
Ms Williams now runs a pie store – Penny’s Pies – and detailed the influence it had on her.
‘Many of us have had interviews with psychologists,’ she mentioned.
‘Most of us are okay now. We have needed to decide ourselves up and go on after our lives veered off in an disagreeable means. Many folks had been worse off than I used to be however what occurred to us was not okay and it definitely has had an influence on folks’s psychological well being.’
In 1999, the Post Office rolled out the Horizon accounting IT system, however faults within the software program led to shortfalls in department accounts.
Relying on the defective IT proof alone, the Post Office pursued subpostmasters and postmistresses for the cash it mentioned they owed.
Those who did not reimburse it from their financial savings had been prosecuted and a few when to jail.
Mr Bates, now 69, and Ms Sercombe used their life financial savings to purchase a Post Office Branch in Llandudno, North Wales, in 1998
Former postmaster Alan Bates, who’s portrayed by Toby Jones within the new drama, led and received the preliminary authorized battle after himself falling sufferer to the faults.
By final month, 142 attraction case evaluations had been accomplished out of 900 individuals who had been convicted within the scandal.
So far, 93 convictions have been overturned and 54 have been upheld, withdrawn or refused permission to attraction.
Last September, ministers mentioned that each department owner-operator who has had their conviction overturned would obtain £600,000 in compensation.
However, final month it emerged that the Post Office had nearly halved the cash put aside for compensation as a result of fewer owner-operators than anticipated had both received or introduced appeals.
