Post Office campaigner sends brutal reply to Government invite to backyard celebration

A Post Office campaigner has accused ministers of nonetheless failing to “get it” after they requested her to attend a Royal backyard celebration as a whole bunch nonetheless struggle for justice.

Former subpostmistress Jo Hamilton, whose story was advised in ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office, publicly turned down an invite issued by the Government as she accused them of partying “while postmasters wait for crumbs from their table”. In a letter to the Department for Business and Trade, she warned she has “nothing to celebrate” whereas her colleagues nonetheless struggle to get compensation for the Post Office scandal.

Ms Hamilton posted her reply on Twitter/X and tagged Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch and Post Office Minister Kevin Hollinrake, with the remark: “The DBT invited me to a Royal Garden Party . They still don’t get it!!! They party on while postmasters wait for the crumbs from their table!!!” She described DBT as “the very department that has prolonged such hardship” amongst postmasters.

The former subpostmistress was pressured to remortgage her home twice and ended up with heaps of debt after being wrongly accused of taking cash from the Post Office. Ms Hamilton, who ran a village store in South Warnborough, Hampshire, was charged with theft of greater than £36,000 and accepted a lesser cost of false accounting in court docket to keep away from going to jail.

She later had her conviction quashed. Hundreds of postmasters are nonetheless ready for compensation regardless of the guarantees of ministers, with attorneys warning some might nonetheless face waits of as much as two years. The Post Office scandal noticed them wrongly handed felony convictions between 1999 and 2015 after Horizon made it seem as if cash was lacking from their shops.

Liam Byrne, the Labour chair of the Commons Business Committee, stated: “If ministers think they can pacify subpostmasters like Alan Bates and Jo Hamilton with a garden party they are very much mistaken. Garden parties are not a substitute for justice. Justice is what’s needed. And it’s needed now.”

ITV’s drama in regards to the scandal ignited a contemporary wave of concern over the massive miscarriage of justice. Post Office hero and lead campaigner Alan Bates , who was performed by Toby Jones within the collection, pleaded with ministers to “get on and pay” victims of the Horizon scandal when he appeared on the Commons Business Committee on Tuesday.

Jo Hamilton’s letter in full:

Dear Honours Team,

Thank you very a lot for my invitation to attend a Royal Garden Party. While it could be pretty to attend, I really feel I can not settle for the invitation as I’ve nothing to have fun whereas my colleagues have but to obtain monetary redress.

I’m and at all times shall be a member of the GLO [Group Litigation Order] group. We shaped in 2009, I attended the primary assembly an it has actually been the struggle of my life for some 16 years now.

How unhappy that after two huge excessive court docket victories greater than 4 years in the past, lots of the group haven’t even had monies stolen from them returned, not to mention any type of monetary redress.

It is because of this I’m unable to celebration as I discover the thought of being a visitor of the very division that has extended such hardship on my colleagues very unpalatable.

Yours sincerely

Jo Hamilton