13 folks took their very own lives and dozens extra contemplated suicide as lives have been wrecked on a large scale by the Post Office Horizon scandal, a damning Inquiry report has discovered.
Sir Wyn Williams, a retired decide, delivered a devastating evaluation on Tuesday of the injury accomplished by the scandal, which is among the greatest miscarriages of justice in British historical past.
The Put up Workplace accused its personal subpostmasters of stealing cash, based mostly on accounting information from the Horizon IT system which it knew was defective.
In a 162-page report, Sir Wyn laid out the horrific penalties for victims and their households, who have been wrongly accused of theft, fraud, and false accounting, made into pariahs in their very own communities, confronted monetary break and homelessness, and in 236 circumstances served jail sentences.
The Inquiry chair revealed for the primary time that 13 folks – six former subpostmasters and 7 others – took their very own lives, whereas not less than 59 folks contemplated suicide.
He stated round 1,000 folks confronted felony prosecution based mostly on proof from the flawed Horizon system, whereas greater than 10,000 individuals are eligible for compensation because of the scandal.
Sir Wyn stated Put up Workplace had taken an “unnecessarily adversarial angle” to compensating victims, in a saga which has dragged on for years even within the face of widespread public anger.
- ‘Full and honest’ compensation for all victims, together with relations of these wrongly accused
- Free authorized recommendation for these caught up within the scandal
- A brand new unbiased physique to take care of compensation for folks wronged by public our bodies
- Pressing motion on his report by October
“Many tons of of individuals have been convicted, wrongly, of felony offences, and lots of hundreds of individuals have been held accountable, wrongly, for losses which have been illusory, versus actual”, he set out.
“All of those individuals are correctly to be thought to be victims of wholly unacceptable behaviour perpetrated by quite a few people employed by and/or related to the Put up Workplace and Fujitsu every so often and by the Put up Workplace and Fujitsu as establishments.”
Many subpostmasters are nonetheless but to obtain full redress (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)
PA Wire
Talking publicly about his report, Sir Wyn stated his findings on the impression of the scandal are “profoundly disturbing”
Sir Wyn delivered his findings and made it clear he expects pressing motion – this yr – slightly ready for the second half of his report back to be delivered in 2026.
“It’s not acceptable to kick the can down the highway”, he stated.
He additionally delivered a style of the last word verdict he’ll attain on the Put up Workplace and its pursuit of subpostmasters between 1999 and 2015.
“Though most of the people who gave proof earlier than me have been very reluctant to simply accept it, I’m glad from the proof that I’ve heard that quite a few senior, and never so senior, staff of Put up Workplace knew or, on the very least, ought to have identified that Legacy Horizon was able to error”, he stated.
“But, for all sensible functions, all through the lifetime of Legacy Horizon, the Put up Workplace maintained the fiction that its information was all the time correct.”
Senior Put up Workplace figures, together with former boss Paula Vennells, gave proof to the Inquiry. Sir Wyn’s second report is anticipated to determine these he believes are guilty for the scandal.
Responding to the report, the Put up Workplace issued an apology for “a shameful interval in our historical past”.
One of many victims, Ravinder Naga, who pleaded responsible to the theft of £35,000 after his mom was wrongly accused, stated the Inquiry report will change into “simply one other e book” until it delivers actual change.
He stated Put up Workplace and Fujitsu have to be “held accountable”.
Chris Head, one other falsely accused subpostmaster, stated of the “damning” report’s publication: “It’s a monumental day.”
“It’s fairly clear that there was a deliberate try and cowl this entire scandal up and now, clearly, the additional traumatic expertise of individuals attempting to obtain redress”, he stated.
Victims publicly shamed, bankrupted, and jailed
The Put up Workplace Inquiry was launched in 2020, after years of campaigning from victims led by Sir Alan Bates and devoted work by journalists. It lastly struck a chord with the general public after ITV’s 2024 dramatisation ‘Mr Bates vs The Put up Workplace’.
The drama depicted the tough justice meted out to victims, and confirmed the 2019 landmark Excessive Court docket judgment that the Horizon system had “bugs, errors and defects”, regardless of years of Put up Workplace insistence that its information was unquestionable.
Sir Alan Bates is asking for an unbiased physique to be created to manage compensation schemes (Yui Mok/PA)
PA Archive
Sir Wyn printed in his report the experiences of 17 victims, for example what number of had misplaced their houses, been publicly shamed, confronted prosecution and imprisonment, and in some case, had misplaced their lives.
Martin Griffiths was accused of mysterious shortfalls on the Horizon system in 2009, and he was suspended from his position as a subpostmaster in Ellesmere Port in 2011.
Sir Wyn stated Mr Griffiths, accused over greater than £100,000 of supposedly lacking cash, then fell sufferer to a theft at his department wherein he was injured, and he was blamed by Put up Workplace for the incident.
In 2013, when going through termination from his position, Mr Griffiths walked in entrance of a bus and took his personal life.
“Mr Griffiths’ dying was and stays devastating for his spouse, kids, and different shut household”, stated the chair.
COLLECT
Tracy Felstead was simply 19-years-old when she was accused, as a Put up Workplace clerk in Camberwell Inexperienced, south London, of stealing £11,503.28.
Sir Wyn set out how she “tried to take her personal life on two separate events” after being accused, and ended up in a safe psychiatric unit at hospital.
“Ms Felstead contested the fees. Following a trial on the Crown Court docket at Kingston-upon-Thames, she was convicted of theft.
“Previous to sentence, Ms Felstead’s household raised the sum of £11,500 so as that she may repay to the Put up Workplace a sum equal to that which she had allegedly stolen.
“The hope was that by paying to the Put up Workplace that sum she would keep away from a right away custodial sentence. That was to not be.
“On 20 June 2022, Ms Felstead was sentenced to a interval of six months at a younger offender establishment.”
The Inquiry heard how {the teenager} was held in Holloway Jail with grownup offenders as a substitute of at a younger offenders establishment.
“Ms Felstead was deployed to serve meals to prisoners”, stated the chair. “On an event which, little doubt, can be eternally seared on her thoughts, she opened a cell door to seek out {that a} prisoner had hanged herself and was lifeless.
“Ms Felstead maintains – and I’ve no problem accepting – that her experiences at Holloway Jail will reside together with her eternally.”
She informed the Inquiry she misplaced job alternatives because of her conviction, and when in employment she would “habitually be certain that there was one other individual current if she was required to ‘money up’ on a until.”
Ms Felstead was denied entry to a compensation scheme in 2013 due to her conviction, and her conviction was in the end
quashed on April 23, 2021, round 20 years after she had been jailed.
Put up Workplace courtroom case
PA Wire
Kamran Ashraf was jailed for 9 months in 2004 after being accused of stealing round £25,000 from the Put up Workplace he ran along with his spouse, Siema Kamran, in Hampstead Heath.
The couple have been each charged with felony offences over the supposed shortfall, and Mr Ashraf pleaded responsible after they are saying they have been suggested by a solicitor that he would get a “slap on the wrist”.
The Put up Workplace began chasing the £25,000, even whereas Mr Ashraf was nonetheless in jail, and it led to the couple shedding their newsagent enterprise and in the end their dwelling.
Mrs Kamran informed the inquiry her husband has PTSD, and she or he had suffered from melancholy and suicidal ideas.
“The wedding between Mrs Kamran and Mr Ashraf nonetheless subsists”, stated Sir Wyn. “However Mrs Kamran describes it as ‘damaged’.
“Though she has contemplated divorce, she ‘would by no means go away him’.”
The inquiry additionally heard that Mr Ashraf’s conviction – which was in the end overturned in December 2020 – introduced “important adversarial publicity” on the household.
Kamran and his household misplaced their dwelling due to the Put up Workplace saga
Daniel Hambury/Stella Photos Ltd
Households of victims ‘deserved compensation’
Geoffrey Pound was a postmaster in Lynmouth in Devon from 2005 to 2007, when he was suspended over an unexplained shortfall of £3,000.
Sir Wyn stated he is among the examples of “disproportionately harsh penalties endured by some postmasters who have been held accountable for comparatively ‘small’ shortfalls.
He and his household – together with his six-year-old daughter – lived in regards to the store, and after his suspension they misplaced the enterprise and have been made homeless.
“Mr Pound and his household have been excluded from the group”, stated the Inquiry chair.
“He was ignored by many and on one event an area store proprietor who was hosing down all the avenue cleaned all over the place besides for outdoor Mr Pound’s store.
“It was clear to him from this occasion that his household have been not welcome.”
The Inquiry heard he tried to take his personal life and spent a month in a psychological well being hospital, and took anti-depressants for 3 years.
Mr Pound stated he continues to wrestle financially to at the present time, dwelling in remoted social housing on a small pension.
Victims of the scandal “need assistance simply to reside a primary life”, he stated.
The Put up Workplace Horizon IT Inquiry concluded in December (Jonathan Brady/PA Archive)
PA Archive
One of many Inquiry’s key suggestions is for households of subpostmasters to be given entry to the compensation scheme.
Millie Castleton was simply eight-years-old when her father Lee was wrongly accused by the Put up Workplace over alleged shortfalls at his department in Bridlington in Yorkshire.
Mr Castleton, now an OBE, was performed by Will Mellor within the ITV drama in regards to the scandal, which depicted his therapy as he was sued within the Excessive Court docket by the Put up Workplace and ordered to pay greater than £300,000.
Millie Castleton informed the Inquiry she was conscious as a toddler of “confusion, frustration, and anxiousness that was leeching into my dwelling”, as her household have been publicly branded “thieves and liars”.
She stated she was verbally and bodily bullied at college, together with being requested on her first week at secondary college: “Didn’t your dad steal a great deal of cash or one thing?”
“College grew to become a spot of loneliness and distress”, stated Sir Wyn.
Millie needed to look after her mom when she developed epilepsy, and her personal psychological well being declined at 17 when she slipped into “melancholy and self-loathing”.
Former Put up Workplace employee Lee Castleton outdoors the Put up Workplace Horizon IT Inquiry (PA)
PA Archive
She dropped out of college early after affected by an consuming dysfunction, and detailed to the Inquiry the trauma she has endured because of the Put up Workplace’s pursuit of her father.
“A part of me will all the time really feel slightly damaged”, she stated. “I nonetheless really feel a burning worry of spending bigger sums of cash or doing one thing purely for myself.
“That nagging voice in my head nonetheless says ugly issues typically. It nonetheless tells me that my previous and my household’s wrestle will outline me, that it will likely be a branding on my pores and skin eternally. Broke, thief, or liar.”
A Put up Workplace spokesperson stated: “The Inquiry has delivered to life the devastating tales of these impacted by the Horizon Scandal. Their experiences signify a shameful interval in our historical past. Right this moment, we apologise unreservedly for the struggling which Put up Workplace brought about to postmasters and their family members. We’ll fastidiously take into account the report and its suggestions.”
‘Take pressing motion’, calls for Inquiry chair
In his report, Sir Wyn demanded a response by Authorities, Put up Workplace, and Fujitsu by October 10, insisting: “No objective can be served by HM Authorities or the Division delaying consideration of my suggestions till the rest of my report is delivered.
“The entire cause for delivering this quantity of my report prematurely of the remaining quantity is that acceptable motion in relation to the schemes for redress might be taken as quickly as moderately doable.”
Sir Wyn Williams (Put up Workplace Horizon IT Inquiry/PA)
PA Media
He has really useful restorative justice for victims, together with a memorial scheme, bursaries for retraining subpostmasters and serving to their kids with schooling, and psychiatric help for victims.
Sir Wyn stated some claimants have confronted a “worry issue”, that they’d lose the prospect of any compensation in the event that they sought to attraction the low figures being supplied.
He concluded: “I’m persuaded that within the troublesome and substantial claims, on too many events, the Put up Workplace and its advisors have adopted an unnecessarily adversarial angle in the direction of making preliminary gives which have had the impact of miserable the extent at which settlements have been achieved.”
Sir Wyn stated he has recognized “egregious” delays in one of many compensation schemes, and concluded that some victims had possible acquired payout that have been lower than they deserved.
In a earlier assertion addressing the compensation schemes, the Division for Enterprise and Commerce stated: “This Authorities has quadrupled the overall quantity paid to affected postmasters to offer them with full and honest redress, with greater than £1 billion having now been paid to over 7,300 claimants.”
