Former sub-postmaster is SUING the Post Office and Fujitsu over the Horizon IT scandal
A former sub-postmaster is suing the Post Office and Fujitsu for a multi-million pound sum over the Horizon IT scandal.
Lee Castleton, from Bridlington, East Yorkshire, is the first individual to sue the two organisations in the wake of the controversy.
More than 900 subpostmasters were wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Horizon accounting software made it look as though money was missing from their accounts.
Hundreds are still awaiting compensation despite the previous government announcing that those who have had convictions quashed are eligible for £600,000 payouts.
‘I want justice and to be publicly vindicated,’ Mr Castleton told the BBC. He is seeking to have a civil action taken against him by the Post Office overturned or set aside. ‘I’d like to effectively have my day in court as well,’ he said.
Mr Castleton was sued by the Post Office for £25,000 it said was missing from his branch in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, in 2007. His two-year legal fight saw him declared bankrupt following legal costs of £321,000.
He said he had little faith in compensation schemes set up by the Post Office for wrongfully-convicted sub-postmasters.
According to the BBC, he instructed his solicitors to launch High Court proceedings against the Post Office and Fujitsu on Tuesday, seeking a multi-million pound sum in compensation over the original judgment against him being obtained by fraud.
Lee Castleton (pictured), from Bridlington, East Yorkshire, is the first individual to sue the two organisations in the wake of the controversy
Former post office workers Lee Castleton (left) and Noel Thomas celebrate outside the Royal Courts of Justice, London, after their convictions were overturned
‘Lee faced a David versus Goliath battle against the Post Office and we are fully ready to take this all the way to the high court should we need to,’ his lawyer Simon Goldberg, from Simons Muirhead Burton, told the BBC.
‘It was never about recovery of the sum of money – it was to make an example of Mr Castleton.’
Mr Goldberg also told the Telegraph: ‘He wants public vindication. He was crushed by the Post Office and he wants the acknowledgement by a court of law that he was innocent all the way along.
‘For Lee, he had to move towns, he had to leave his property, his job was gone forever, he was a pariah. So of course these claims are multi-million pound claims, because you’re starting again – they destroyed his life.’
His case came under the spotlight in January 2024 when it featured heavily in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office. Mr Castleton was portrayed by actor Will Mellor in the successful drama.
He said the campaign had undergone ‘a complete turnaround’ after the drama aired, adding: ‘The whole of the nation seems like they’re very much behind us.’
Mr Castleton said there were still ‘highly pensioned, highly paid’ executives at the Post Office who needed to be held accountable for their role in the Horizon scandal.
He went on: ‘I hope that our fight, my fight, everyone’s fight, continues until something changes. I just don’t mean for our group, I mean for everybody. Society deserves so much better. We deserve proper justice – there’s nobody in this country that’s above the law.’
His case came under the spotlight in January 2024 when it featured heavily in the ITV drama Mr Bates (portrayed by Toby Jones, pictured above) vs The Post Office. Mr Castleton was portrayed by actor Will Mellor in the successful drama
Seema Misra has been made an OBE in the New Year Honours list, for services to Justice
Mr Castleton was one of four sub-postmasters who campaigned for justice for victims of the Post Office scandal to have been awarded OBEs in the New Years Honours.
Seema Misra, Chris Head and Jo Hamilton were given the honours alongside Mr Castleton after fellow campaigner Sir Alan Bates was knighted last year.
Mrs Misra was pregnant with her second child when she was convicted of theft and sent to jail in 2010 and had her baby while serving a prison sentence.
She was one of the hundreds of sub-postmasters who were accused of theft after faults in the Post Office’s Horizon IT system made it appear that money was missing from their branch accounts.
Mrs Misra ran a Post Office in West Byfleet, Surrey, but was suspended in 2008 and handed a 15-month prison sentence in November 2010, on her son’s 10th birthday, after she was wrongly accused of stealing £74,000.
She said the scandal was ‘ongoing’ and that many sub-postmasters were still waiting for compensation and ‘accountability’ from the Post Office.
She said she was ‘very honoured’ by the OBE, adding: ‘It will give more weight to the fight and we need to keep reminding people the scandal hasn’t been sorted out yet.
‘It’s one of the main reasons I accepted it – to remind people that the scandal hasn’t gone yet.’
