Post Office scandal: The ordinary lives devastated by a faulty IT system

More than 900 people who ran post offices were prosecuted after faulty computer software made it look like money was missing from their branches.

While victims of the scandal have now been promised swift exoneration and compensation by the government, hundreds of people's lives have already been ruined. It has been described as the biggest miscarriage of justice in UK history.

Some lost their jobs, businesses and homes; they were left financially ruined. Some were convicted and sent to prison. Some died while waiting for justice. Others killed themselves.

Many victims felt they were on their own, yet hundreds of others were enduring similar experiences. These are some of their stories.

Alan Bates became the face of the fight against the injustices of the Post Office. His story has come to define those of at least 736 others who were also wrongfully convicted between 1999 and 2015.

A sub-postmaster, Alan took over a shop with a post office counter in the seaside town of Llandudno, in 1998. Together with his partner, Suzanne, they poured their life savings into the business.

But soon he was facing huge shortfalls - money that was seemingly lost - and there was no explanation.

The Post Office blamed him, as it did hundreds of others.

But unlike many other sub-postmasters and mistresses, who felt immense pressure over their own apparent losses, Alan did not admit liability.

He raised concerns about the false shortfalls. He tried to fight.

Alan's contract was terminated. He was sacked by the Post Office in 2003. But for the last 20 years, he has campaigned to find the truth about what happened.

He first set up a website, calling out to other sub-postmasters who might have faced similar issues.

In 2009, he and six others spoke out publicly for the first time about the flaws of Horizon - the computer accounting system used by the Post Office - in an interview with Computer Weekly.

Thousands of hours of work ensued.

He attended court hearings, organised meetings, pushed forward with the assistance of MPs and ministers. Media and politicians slowly took notice. News reports started to sound alarm bells.

When mediation attempts with the Post Office failed, Alan became one of six lead claimants in a group legal action involving more than 500 former sub-postmasters.

They told judges the Horizon IT system contained software defects, which caused shortfalls in their accounts.

He told the court he never believed he would be held responsible for financial losses that were not his fault.

"This concept seems just so unjust that I did not consider it a possibility," he says.

The judge agreed. The Horizon system was flawed and a group of 555 post office workers won a group action paving the way for the first round of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses to have their convictions overturned in 2021.

Alan's story - and name - was the focus of the ITV drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which has reignited the public consciousness around the Post Office scandal.

"It's been the best or the worst unpaid job I've ever had," he says. "You just carry on with it day after day. You can't let it go."

Seema Misra was eight weeks pregnant with her second child when she was wrongly convicted of false accounting and theft. An audit of her post office, in the Surrey village of West Byfleet, had found a shortfall of more than £70,000.

Seema had also found discrepancies in the accounts several years earlier. Unable to get answers from the Post Office, and warned she could lose her business, she began feeding money from her shop to the till to cover the apparent shortfalls.

Seema borrowed large amounts of money from relatives to balance the books - including £22,000 from her sister-in-law.

She says she felt like "the dumbest person on the planet".

"They say they have so many other post offices who are doing fine, 'it's you having an issue'. I used to be on the floor until the early hours of the morning trying to find out what went wrong, but [I] couldn't find it."

The Post Office prosecuted her.

She was one of 736 people who were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 based on information from the Horizon computer accounting system - an average of one a week. A further 283 cases were brought by other bodies, including the Crown Prosecution Service.

Seema was given a 15-month prison sentence in 2010. She was sent to Bronzefield Prison on the day of her son's 10th birthday and ordered to pay compensation totalling £40,000.

Her husband, Davinder, lied to family members - including Seema's parents in India - and did not reveal she was prison.

He made excuses for her missing phone calls, sometimes holding up a landline to his mobile so Seema could talk to her parents from prison without them knowing.

"If I [wasn't] pregnant I would have killed myself," she says. "It was really bad, I never thought I was going to come out alive from there." Released early due to her good behaviour, Seema gave birth to her second son wearing an electronic tag.

In total, 236 postmaster and postmistresses have been sent to prison. To date, 95 convictions have been overturned. Seema's conviction is one of them.

She was one of the 39 sub-postmasters celebrating at the Court of Appeal on a spring day in April 2021.

"Each and every happy moment of my life since 2005, the Post Office ruined," Seema says. She is still waiting for compensation and has "no idea what it will be".

Peter Holmes died from a brain tumour aged 74, in 2015. Six years later, his conviction was overturned at the Court of Appeal.

He is not the only person to have died without justice. Alan Bates estimates 60 or 70 people have died in the intervening years. Some ended their own lives.

Peter's widow, Marion, who he was married to for 51 years, says her late husband's reputation was "destroyed" by the Post Office.

Peter had been a manager at a post office in Jesmond, a suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne. He was a former police constable. He had grown up in Jesmond and was based there while in the police. Peter was well-known and highly-respected in the community.

Like the others, he began seeing shortfalls in his Horizon system and used his own money to balance the sums. But the amounts became too large for him to cover.

After the Post Office audited his accounts, Peter was accused of stealing £46,000 and was suspended from work in 2008.

He kept telling Marion not to worry, but she says she "knew something was wrong". For weeks she would hear Peter being sick as he got ready in the morning. He told Marion he had just been coughing.

While under investigation, he began working as a casual delivery driver for a florist, but quit because he felt he couldn't tell his new employers he was being prosecuted.

He was convicted in January 2010 and sentenced to a community order with a curfew for three months - lasting from 7pm to 7am every day. The local newspaper ran a story with Peter's picture on the front page.

"I think that destroyed him more than anything else," says Marion. "The last person on earth who would have cheated anyone or pinched money was Peter."

She says he rarely went out after that, even when his curfew ended. He considered volunteering for a charity, transporting cancer patients to hospital, but decided not to after he found out they would carry out a background check.

Following his conviction, Peter learned of the plight of other sub-postmasters.

He contacted Alan Bates and, shortly before his health deteriorated, Peter appealed against his conviction. Before he died, a decision was made to review his case.

In April 2021, Marion travelled to the Royal Courts of Justice in London, with her son to hear her late husband's conviction being overturned. Like Seema, Peter was one of 39 former postmasters who had their convictions quashed that day.

"It was a funny feeling," Marion says. "It was really a bit bittersweet."

"When I meet Peter at the end of that rainbow I want to be able to tell him everybody got the justice they deserved - that's the good, bad and ugly."

Anjana and Baljit Sethi ran two post offices near Romford, in Essex, where they raised their three children. Anjana had grown up in a post office. Her dad was a sub-postmaster. The family were experienced at their jobs.

With business going well, they were encouraged by the Post Office to take on a second branch. So in 2001, they took out a £120,000 loan to buy and start up the new shop.

But things soon began going wrong. The Horizon computer system began showing shortfalls, which grew to £17,000.

Unable to afford to cover the difference, the Sethis closed the new branch. They were left financially ruined. The couple's son, Adeep, 38, says family life has been a struggle for his parents ever since.

Although Baljit has given evidence to the ongoing public inquiry, Adeep says his father still finds it hard to talk about what happened to the family.

"There's a reason I do media - he cannot talk about it without breaking down. He goes straight to anger, straight to emotion, he cannot control it. It has emotionally broken him."

Much like the Sethi family, Shazia Saddiq used to run multiple post offices in her home city of Newcastle. She lived above a shop in Ryton with her two young children.

But in October 2016, she was told around £40,000 was missing from one of her shops. She printed out receipts as long "as toilet rolls" to try to understand what had gone wrong.

The 40-year-old wasn't eventually prosecuted, but her shops were shut down. And people in the area assumed she was a thief.

One day she had eggs and flour thrown at her in the street while her two children were getting out of a car outside their home. She still wonders who it was.

That night, Shazia decided to pack up her home and leave the area. The family now live in Banbury, in Oxfordshire.

"It's been awful," Shazia says. "I have been carrying this forever."

Customers at Jo Hamilton's post office could buy a slice of cake from the attached cafe before purchasing their stamps. Her story is one of the central themes of the ITV drama.

In one emotional scene, a panic-stricken Jo begins trying to balance the books after a long day. The Horizon software shows losses doubling in front of her eyes, yet her concerns are dismissed by a helpline operator.

Jo demands a visit from the Post Office area manager. She is told she is "the only one having problems". Jo had to remortgage her home to pay the debts and borrowed from friends in an attempt to cover the amount she thought she owed.

Prosecuted for a shortfall of £36,000 in 2006, she was persuaded to plead guilty to a charge of false accounting. "I felt I had no choice because I was terrified of going to prison," she says.

Her life was turned upside down. She was forced to give up her shop and found it difficult to get a new job due to her criminal record. She made ends meet by doing cleaning jobs for people in her village who didn't believe she was guilty.

Her conviction was eventually quashed in 2021. She has received some financial redress for her ordeal, describing it as a "good chunk" of money. "My husband was diagnosed with cancer last year and thank goodness we've got a little bit of money so that we can pay for his treatment.

"I feel lucky I was criminalised because I've had some chance at compensation. It's just scandalous. A lot of people have lost a whole pile of money - houses, businesses, marriages - the lot."

But she is still searching for answers. "I would love to find out why this has all happened - how far up the chain does it go? Were people doing what they were told or were they doing it because they were bad? That's what's important to me because I still don't understand it."

Jo is one of just 30 victims of the scandal who have agreed final settlements - meaning most are yet to receive a penny for the trauma they have been through.

ITV's drama has thrust the stories of the wronged sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses into the limelight, most of whom are still waiting for redress.

The Sethi family are still waiting for final compensation after more than 20 years. Adeep says some of the offers from the Post Office have been "insulting".

He is pleased the issue is back in the spotlight, but says it feels like they are still fighting the Post Office. "Even now you're treated like you're not an honest person," he says.

The Horizon scandal has been in his parents' lives for 20 years. "All they want is for final compensation and to never think about the Post Office again."

It is estimated more than 4,000 people have been told they are eligible for compensation across three separate schemes. But how many of those will be able to fully recover the losses they've endured?

One thing is certain - the sub-postmasters and postmistresses are no longer alone.

Jo Hamilton says she has now "moved on with my life". But she is still part of the group battling for justice. "I can't stop fighting until everyone gets their money," she says.

"The priority is to get the money that people are actually owed," says Alan Bates. "Get it out to them as soon as possible. They can't get on with their lives, or what is left of them."

"It has gone on for far too long," he told the inquiry into the scandal this week. "People are suffering, they are dying."

Production and design by Kady Wardell, Zoe Bartholomew and Lilly Huynh

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