Post Office TV drama 'unearths lots of deep memories' for postmasters

A former sub-postmaster has said a TV drama on the Horizon IT scandal has "unearthed lots of deep memories".

Andrew Tizzard and his wife Kathy from Othery, Somerset, said they would "sweat" every time it came to using the software and make up money lost in the system for a "quiet life".

More than 700 Post Office branch managers were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting.

The story has been dramatised by ITV in Mr Bates vs the Post Office.

Mr Tizzard said: "Money just disappeared before your eyes and we had massive losses that we couldn't explain.

"Watching the TV drama, I'm still shaking just thinking about what happened to me and my wife.

"We took over a post office in South Wales in the early days of the Horizon system introduction and it become very clear there were gremlins in the system.

"You had two options - either pay the losses from our your own pocket or get taken to court. We put thousands of money in to just balance the books."

The Post Office accounting system is now the focus of the ITV drama, highlighting the stories of former workers wrongly convicted of fraud.

Between 2000 and 2014, a flaw in a newly-installed computer system made it look like money was missing from Post Offices.

It led to suspensions, termination of contracts, wrongful prosecutions and convictions.

The ITV four-part mini-series is based on the real-life story of postmaster Alan Bates and the legal battle he led and won, paving the way for dozens of convictions to be overturned.

Gail Ward, from Wells, Somerset, was falsely accused of stealing more than £12,000 from the former post office on Priory Road.

She managed to save up and paid all the money in full out of her own pocket.

But Mrs Ward was still taken to court and convicted and sentenced to 150 hours of community service and ordered to clean trains at Cranmore Station.

She told BBC Radio Somerset: "It's traumatic watching it back as everyone involved are friends - and we knew them.

"We lost our business, our home, my self respect and my standing in the community and you can't put a price on that.

"Not only did they take the present, they took our future - I'll never forgive them.

"I want Paula Vennells (the former chief executive of the Post Office) to hand back her CBE - no apology will ever be enough."

A spokesperson for the Post Office said they are "doing all we can to right the wrongs of the past".

"Both Post Office and government are committed to providing full, fair and final compensation for the people affected," the spokesperson added.

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