Post Office scandal: My family was ‘abused’ in Post Office ordeal | Former sub-postmaster 

The more I hear these stories, the more rage I feel… and I am not a victim! This is beyond outrageous. The Post Office has acted criminally. Their actions have stolen people’s liberty, ruined lives and reputations, and even led to people’s deaths. There MUST be a reckoning for this.

"Post Office under criminal investigation"...... about bloody time!

The fact that they stood up in court and lied is egregious. Heads need to roll for this! I am so tired of people in this country just allowing people in the establishment to get away with things that are downright wrong. The more I look at this situation it seems like a reflection of the decline of our country. All our institutions are corrupt and the powers that be don’t even care that they are! Imagine knowing all this is happening in one of our most trusted institutions and just being ok with it! There needs to be drastic change in this country.

The fact that the Post Office decided immediately to put all their trust in a Big Company with new IT, rather than stand by their own Workforce, who have a Great deal of Experience and Loyalty combined. These Victims of Crime, must all get the Justice they whole heartedly deserve. 🇬🇧💷⚖️

I have followed the Post Office 'Horizon' scandal for many years and the more I hear from the sub postmasters affected by this, the more it sickens and enrages me. ALL of those that allowed this travesty to 'be' need to be named, shamed and sent to prison.

He needs to be reimbursed by millions! And his town needs to have a penance service and everyone personally apologize to him. What a horrific situation and horrible people!!

It is strange none of the Judges questioned what the prosecutions were based on.

🦉🐯 Paula Vennells, who served as Post Office CEO from 2012 to 2019, ran this firm whilst it routinely denied there were problems with its Horizon IT system, she knew the issues and she lied, even “stealing” sub-postmasters personal money to “cover” their loses, and imprisoning innocent people, people, real people! The ones that are responsible have to face prison themselves, Paula Vennells needs to be on trial! As for the lawyers being awarded £321,000 by a judge for costs, well I doubt someone representing themselves get such an “award”.

How can you "pay money back" to the Post Office when it was never stolen in the first place?

These criminals in corporate world should be made to pay for their actions, they knew exactly what they were doing. 🇬🇧

The bosses at this time must pay criminally for this - there MUST be prison sentances - long ones.

A mate of mine was also a Sub-Postmaster in a small coastal village, and his dad before him. He was similarly accused of cooking the books in exactly the same way and for the same given reasons as the interviewee, new software rollout followed by booked cash “disappearing” before his eyes. Knowing him and his family for over 40 years I have to say that there’s absolutely no way in creation that he’d have done what he was accused of, no chance. He eventually managed to establish his innocence through beginning a regime of two hourly accounts reconciliations, filming the onscreen data, working late nights checking and rechecking while recording everything meticulously. Following the 2 years of unbelievable strife that he went through, his lifetime of faith in the organisation was pretty much shredded. Then the rollout of shutdowns really started happening and he got leant on harder and harder to throw the towel in and just take the lousy offer he was being made to give the office up. Eventually he gave in and let it go, it broke him.

This government drag their feet at paying back, and compensation to people who have been hurt with not just this miscarriage of justice but many others too, when they easily pay out millions to their cronies. My heart goes out to Lee and all the other people who have been scammed by the PO/ our government.

I am outraged that public money was used to prosecute these hundreds of innocent people.

They need to be held accountable for the lives ruined and those lost.

what a Kafkaesque nightmare this was and still no accountability!

Small minded people , parents, taught their kids to bully other kids. You know who you are. Problem is the judges were not impartial accepting without question the PO assertions. They must also be investigated for corruption.

The social damage caused by privatisation is never ending. These people should be compensated to the point that they never have to worry about money again for the rest of their lives.

it should also be remembered that adam crozier oversaw this for several years before vennels took over, he should get his collar felt too

What I fear will happen is that they'll find a few mid ranking PO and Fujitsu people and throw them under the bus, and all of the senior managers will just get a slap on the wrist.

Prosecutions MUST follow..... and the executives deserve life in prison.

Fraud is a diversion and a very odd charge to pursue. We have seen easily proved examples of perjury and a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in these cases and that is what the charges should be.

Paula vennells needs a criminal investigation as do here other companies and ventures hopefully one of our intelligence services will do the right thing as people would for them if in the same spot!

The stipulation in the contract that they had to cover losses personally, and then the computer system not working properly, sounds like a set up to me. It has taken far too long to sort this out. Post Office bullies! This is heart-breaking.

A scandalous witch-hunt with disastrous personal, human and social consequences. Can't understand how such criminal misjugements can take place in a modern society. And the responsible is probably sitting in the house of Lords...

All I can say is I’am sorry for what happened to the man and his family!

Adam crozier was the post office ceo before Paula Vennalls he needs to be held to account when he left the post office he took up a high profile position with itv unsurprisingly he was not included in the itv program. Investigate Adam Crozier now

I've been following this scandal for many years now and I can't tell you how angry and ashamed I am of being English. Governments of all shades have dragged their feet and kicked the can down the road from the beginning..The Post Office, Fujitsu and The Government all share responsibility for this utter catastrophey. Compensation and accountability are all well overdue!

Surely the first thing the Post Office has to do NOW is to reimburse all the postmasters or their descendents with the money they stole with appropriate interest payments. After all it is still the postmasters' personal money.

The Post Office needs breaking up so this type of state fund monopoly can never again destroy so many people's lives.

The people who abused these people MUST have the moral conviction to face them and apologise.

When corporations are held criminally accountable….. nothing will change, Only when the directors and CEOs who dictate policy are held criminally accountable will things change

This is tragic ….. someone needs to be accountable for this terrible injustice

"Justice delayed is justice denied" means that if legal redress to an injured party is available, but is not forthcoming in a timely fashion, it is effectively the same as having no remedy at all. And unfortunately, for too many sub-postmasters, that is the reality, especially for those who have died, killed themselves, suffered illness, or have a criminal stain on their record. No amount of delayed compensation after 20 years will make much of a difference to that.

A sad (and infuriating) thing amongst admittedly loads of sad things about this case is that this is not a surprise, time and time again the establishment tries to crush the little people then closes ranks and not one person is ever held to account.

Lee my heart bleeds for you, your wife and children. Fight the good fight my friend and as a British tax payer who owns the post office I am so sorry .

Does anyone know the average rate of fraud, or number of postmasters and postmistresses accused BEFORE the introduction of the new computer system? Surely this would give an indication of what was going on.

Only now have the Police acted ,this has gone on for decades the whole justice system is appalling ,the Government has allowed this on their watch

The more I hear the more I cant believe it, this is absolutely disgusting

Thank you for highlighting these terrible injustices again!! Please don't stop until sub-postmasters have been recompensed!!!

The absolute base line of compensation should be the full amount that they were accused of stealing, especially as the money effectively was never missing in the first place, , it should also include any interst on the monies that they paid the post office. Then, real compensation should be awarded for all other losses as a result of this mafia like action.

Surely there must be legal action taken against individuals in this discraceful debacle, dont let them hide behind 'corporate identity'!

Wrongdoing means the post office shares should be suspended. Since the money is in the company

I don't understand how people thought that someone being done for false accounting or theft within the post office translates to stealing from old people, as if they were mugging pensioners for thir pension book.

I do hope that the people who gave Lee an his family a hard time spitting an yelling at them now, help them if the Castleton family can forgive them, he was wrongly accused an punished for absolutely nothing but provide a service to the people of Bridlington, well done to Lee and family which is twenty years too late.

I can’t imagine anyone from the post office will ever come to book.

Now these RECENT post office recruitment ads make sense. It's PR. I was thinking its been years since I've seen them recruiting. Wow

What does this say about the British Justice System? How come no lawyers or judges connected the dots ? When an anomaly occurs why wasn't it questioned ?

Profit before people

Isn’t is convenient that one of the emails from Vennells was not redacted? So later down the line she can say she asked the question about horizon being able to access these terminals. This will be part of her convenient defence. Pity she just didn’t have the same forethought in actually doing her job!

Disgraceful organization. Should be stripped of that Royal emblem.

Why does this computer company still have a licence in this country????

The police must investigate at speed if there was criminal activity undertaken by senior Post Offices and Fujitsu employees to knowingly misled the vitamins, courts and Parliament to protect the organisations and themselves. This feels like the Hillsborough event where institutions drew ranks to protect individuals who knew the truth and lied. These people destroyed postmasters lives to protect themselves and this cannot be allowed. Its too easy to kick these things into the long grass as clearly this has been happening for years. The Horizon project rollout started in 1999 so the planning,design of the solution would have taken many years, so ALL the previous Heads of the Post Office (and ICL/Fujitsu) need to be investigated not just Paula Vennells 2010-2019 but also Adam Crozier 2003-2010 etc. when these prosecutions started to happen. The current inquiry to compensation for the postmasters is a completely separate matter.

Those investigators earned bonuses - they had incentives - for the amount of money they clawed out of people’s hides There were emails shown at the inquiry, & they were crowing at how well they’d do!

20 years? A joke isn't it. Scandalous. Apologise and compensate the victims of the PO now.

What a amazing gentleman. Please everyone help him who can, everyone at the post office scandal should be in jail right now. Disgusting. Post office needs to be disbanded.

I’ve heard the Japanese company who sold the system to the Post Office, said the system was good. Why is the government not taking to the company. Are the politicians in there pocket.

When asked the question "where did the money go" I've heard lots of people saying that it ended up in the profits of the Post Office. I've not heard anyone suggesting that there is deliberate fraud involved. That seems at least as likely to me, and most certainly should be investigated as a possibility.

As an "expert witness" and engineering software developer, I can tell you that it is 100% possible to find all the bugs in the Horizon software that ran on the post office users' systems. And once the bugs have been found, it is also 100% possible to determine EXACTLY how much each PO user account has been ripped off by, as every single transaction was recorded (logged). Once every single incorrect transaction has been logged, and tallied up with relevant phone call records, where users discussed issues, it'll be possible to prove guilt. Kind of obvious already, but hey. Then show how much suffering each user had to endure. The world is becoming more and more technical, and sadly our political rulers are becoming more and more misinformed, relying on 'trusted" technical sources who IMO are not to be trusted. Always use peer reviewed sources of technical reference, not "mates" who you think you can trust on technical matters.

"It's easier to fool someone than to later convince them they've been fooled".

No one can tell me that Paula Vennells was totally to blame, it appears that she was the "fall-guy" at the time she was brought in, the Horizon problem was already very "robust", and the P.O boardroom knew there was a big fan that was going to hit bigtime, they neatly introduced Paula to the $hitstorm, and bless her she didn't have a clue she was manoeuvred so? Then there is the Fujitsu staff, their conduct is also criminal, if it can be shown that they guided some funds into associates or family accounts? If it was that easy to make numbers disappear at one terminal, it would be just as easy to make those "numbers" appear at another terminal, at another post office?

Heads need to roll for this travesty and not able to hide behind a company. The people in charge made these decisions and lied in court...that's criminal.

The Post Office should be prosecuted also and as a matter of priority for the fraud and theft that lost the postmasters and mistresses their livelihoods, homes and reputations.

Just Horrible?

Significant jail time MUST await the guilty, but as it's the establishment back scratchers, nothing of note will happen.

The whole saga has been a disgrace and what is more galling is that sub postmasters who have been wronged are still waiting for compensation. The other thing that is galling is the media silence until the ITV drama. I have no doubt at all that this story will be forgotten by the media in a few weeks including Times Radio. If Times Radio really care about this scandal it will continue to headline the scandal and keep it in the news on a regular basis but that is not going to happen, is it Times Radio?

About time postal workers said this when it first happened. That woman should be in prision never mind her award. Also where were the unions so much for paying fees each week.

Surely it should be termed "Malicious Prosecutions".

I feel devastated for the sub contractors their families the disgusting behaviour from the gov down to the post office continues to not answer honestly & only say sorry after 20 years 😡

If you think the way the PO is portrayed as nasty and thuggish in the recent drama is exaggerated - just ask your postie what sort of things the PO tried to put on their staff during the recent period when postal workers were on strike. Almost unbelievably inhuman.

For me and it appears everyone else JUSTICE not just prompt recompense is essential for our institutions to be trusted. In recent years so many leaders of corporations have got away with questionable business operations without any consequences. This is the most social and moral spotlight on the need for the personal responsibilities of company executives and their accountability.

The crash of the Post Office Horizon computer system destroyed the lives of 800 sub post masters. 44 years ago, the crash of the Air New Zealand DC-10 aircraft in Antarctica killed 257 souls. Both Post Office in the UK and Air New Zealand were owned 100% by the state. Post Office executives approved the lying. They blamed the Post Masters for the errors. Air New Zealand executives lied that the pilots made the errors when it was the company’s mismanagement that caused the crash. By blaming the pilots, the families of the 257 victims were defrauded by the state of New Zealand for the correct compensation. Instead, only NZ$42000 was payable under the Warsaw Convention that applied to pilot error crashes of the time. The NZ government got away with the biggest fraud in the Southern Hemisphere as a result of the Executives lying. Will the UK government succeed likewise in reducing the reimbursement of the sub postmasters in the UK? Highly likely!

This is shocking

The Post Office hierarchy would have known that the discrepencies rose (not isolated cases) within weeks/months of Horizon going live. The Post Office should pay back with interest every penny they stole from innocent sub post masters.

The management of the Post Office from 2003 onwards should brought to book. They were completely at fault. Their lawyers were mislead,but that doesn't let them out of this scandal. They didn't do due diligence. How has it taken the Met Police so long to act?. What have they doing all this time? The whole scandal is so horrendous. The Government owned the Post Office,so they're culpable as well . The Sub-Postmasters should have legal and financial backing to bring charges against all those at The Post Office,who engineered this disgusting situation.

In my opinion the Post Office should be charged with manslaughter (some SPMs took their own lives), perjury, presenting to a court of law false evidence, pursuing a malicious complaint, perverting the course of justice, demanding money with menaces, bringing the name of the Post Office into disrepute, theft, false accounting (failure to carry out due diligence), failing to properly investigate concerns raised by employees, not following correct procedures when investigating a cash discrepancy, etc What now with the Post Office? With people not buying stamps as we send emails, state pensions are now paid directly into bank accounts as are other payments, postal orders are a thing of the past, telegrams are replaced by text messaging etc. etc. the need for post offices have been diminishing, now they have lost the trust of the general public, even with a new management it will take years to repair the damage. The poor sub-postmasters, honest hardworking people robbed of their dignity and their status in society by a once trusted organisation who have acted in the same manner as a dictatorial state.

I want to see the people responsible jailed

The money went to the people in charge to have a nice life style,they should be in prison.

Endless respect to Lee

The PO should be prosecuted and individuals within it should face prosecution along with the establishment who were happy to let it happen THE WHOLE POLITICAL SYSTEM IS CORRUPT FROM TOP TO BOTTOM

No one at the top does time in Britain will be swept under the rug as per

Paula needs to hand back her CBE for all the lives she as ruined.

Those managers at the PO that signed off the procedures MUST have known what was going on and that it was wrong that so many POs were involved, and that it was not the fault of the accused PO owners. I wonder just how much those criminal managers paid themselves in bonuses during all these years. My heart goes out to the people who were victimised, I am glad the truth is now coming out. It just goes to show how much integrity and resilience the victims show.

Again we see that people of this country waiting years to get justice for a wrong doing by others that seems will never be found and face justice. What happened to the so-called great justice of this country.Sort this out now these people have suffered anough for two long. The post office must be stopped from using these lawyers to stop paying these people compo that will never be anough.

If it had happened to me, I would be looking for my pound of flesh.

I am raging too.

Sounds like the Postoffice computer Systems were hacked ! By Black Hat Hackers !

Let's see if the victims are compensated before their dearh. A police prosecution would likely take even longer. Posthumously found guilty wouldn't surprise me

Bring the owners of the P.O. and that's the GOVERNMENT.

When are the police going to be investigated about Facilitating then protecting Asian Grooming Gangs ?

Even in 1999 all this should have taken is a good team of software engineers too find the code causing the problem, did the government even ask Fujitsu to do that?

Sincerely, 900 people comiting the same crime and at the same time, software replacement. Comon sense dictates that there is something wrong on the software side...

Can anyone tell me if this faulty computer system was stopped being used. If so why? Was it just happening in certain areas? The nightmare for the victims is almost over. I hope all who have died are posthumously exonerated. And that heads will roll.

PayPal should also be investigated for the lives and ruin they have caused to sellers who had their accounts closed and money kept. In my Case £14,000 of which the Financial Ombudsman got released £4000 on a PayPal credit Card. I was bankrupted over this and many have died. In my own case the Post Office were also involved.

If the post office as been proven wrong, pay these people what they are owed.They know they are wrong.British justice is so long winded, Americans, would been compensated long ago.Reason for delay is so these people give up in desperation, and the will not to win .They are owned millions.

Finally prosecute the real criminals the ones that lied and covered up their crimes. And sue the computer company that made up the program. Repay the postmasters for what they paid that they were not having to pay . Pay all the legal cost for court cases. And pay back all lost wages

I understand that amounts went into a suspence account that was cleared out after 3 years. If it was cleared that normally means it would go into the profit and loss account. The accountants and auditors should be questioned - they will know the answers! If this is correct. If wrong amounts have gone into the profit and loss account that must be fraud.

It is important to know that when all this happens Tthe Subpostoffices were financially suporting the PO. The Crown Offices (The big post offices) were losing money.

Too much "we are correct by default and don't need to investigate anything" from people at the top.

Shame on the Post Office management, incompetent and criminally culpable