Horizon scandal: Sub-postmaster's dad 'gave me every last penny'

A former sub-postmaster's father gave him "every single last penny in the world" to pay the Post Office £12,000 an auditor said he had stolen in 2013.

Richard Sockett said the "losses started to increase" after he received a Horizon pin pad to use at the branch he ran in Barton, Cambridgeshire.

Hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of crimes due to a flaw in the Horizon computer system.

Mr Sockett, 65, was left feeling he had let his "family and community down".

Between 1999 and 2015, 700 sub-postmasters and postmistresses - self-employed people who run Post Office branches - were prosecuted for offences such as theft, fraud and false accounting, with some going to prison and others even taking their own lives.

Mr Sockett took over the Barton post office in 2003 and ran it with his wife until his suspension in April 2013.

After "a very happy time", everything changed in 2012 with arrival of the Horizon pin pad.

"I called the helpline and they told me what buttons to press and I had exactly the same experience in the ITV drama when Jo [Hamilton] pressed the button with them on the line and she said, 'Oh my god it's doubled, it's changed in front of my eyes'," he said.

Within two hours of a Post Office auditor arriving in 2013, he was locked out of his branch and told he owed nearly £12,000.

Mr Sockett said: "They gave me two choices - either pay this today and we may not prosecute you, or we immediately pass you to our security team and it's likely you'll be charged with theft."

"[My dad] had exactly £12,000 in his bank account and he said, 'Take the lot'.

"So my 80-year-old father had to give me every single last penny in the world to pay off this debt."

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Mr Sockett sold the business 18 months later and was left "empty and bereft" and "mentally distressed".

He has since received some compensation through the Post Office's Horizon Shortfall Scheme.

The Post Office declined to comment while the public inquiry was ongoing.

Previously, it said it was "sorry for the impact of the Horizon scandal on the lives of victims".

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