After being personally involved with this scandal for over 6 years now the reality of what has gone on for over two decades still has the ability to shock and bring you to tears. The past few days in the Court of Appeal we have heard the harrowing stories of over 40 Sub Postmasters, a number of them sadly not with us today. Reading and listening to each of the stories makes you believe it is some kind of fiction story or a movie. You cannot believe an organisation such as the Post Office and especially owned by the government to have gone to the lengths it did to literally destroy people. Below are a number of the stories that were read out in court. Nick Wallis reported the story of Dawn O'Connell on one of his blog posts at https://www.postofficetrial.com/2021/03/dawn-oconnell-rip.html
Dawn O'Connell
She was a Post Office manager in Northolt. The Post Office prosecuted her for theft and false accounting after an unexplained shortfall shown on the Horizon branch accounting system.
She died in September last year, aged 57. Her son Matthew and brother Mark were in the Court of Appeal yesterday. An appeal against her criminal conviction is being advanced in Matthew’s name.
Ben Gordon QC told the three judges :
'My Lord, in the years following her conviction in 2008, and the serving of her suspended sentence, Ms O’Connell’s health, both physical and mental, declined dramatically. According to her family and loved ones, her personality also changed, irrevocably. She became increasingly isolated, ultimately reclusive, as described by her family, and struggled desperately to deal with the stigma of her conviction.
She suffered, my Lord, with severe bouts of depression. She did receive treatment, medication and counselling, but she sunk inexorably into alcoholism. In her latter and final years, my Lord, I understand that Ms O’Connell made repeated attempts upon her own life. In September of last year, her body succumbed to the damage caused by her sustained abuse of alcohol and she died tragically at the age of 57.
My Lord, on behalf of her son, her brother, and all her surviving family members and friends, I feel compelled to tender to the court their sincere regret and deep anguish that Dawn is not here today to hear her case being argued.'
Julian Wilson
He was one of the founding members of the Justice for Sub Postmasters Alliance. He was interviewed by Nick Wallis in 2014 alongside his wife Karen. You can read the interview here http://becarefulwhatyouwishfornickwallis.blogspot.com/2016/08/julian-wilson.html
'Karen stood there with tears streaming down her face as Julian explained in his measured, Hampshire burr how problems with the computer system at their Post Office in Astwood Bank had caused their lives to fall apart.'
Wallis said there was never a trace of bitterness about Julian. 'He accepted things with great patience even though he was still in danger of losing his house because of the Post Office’s pursuit of him.”
Julian found out he had terminal cancer towards the end of 2015. 'This summer he deteriorated rapidly,' says Wallis in 2016. 'He carried on campaigning against the Post Office until he had no strength left and sadly passed away.'
Martin Griffiths
The recent government whitewash inquiry saw a submission by the widow of the late Martin Griffith ex Postmaster of Hope Farm Road Post Office in Great Sutton.
She said that in 2013, after unexplained shortages shown on Horizon, she and Martin had to pay the Post Office £102,000. The couple used savings and borrowed money. Martin’s parents contributed £62,000. At the time of the trauma of trying to find the money, there was an armed robbery at the branch where Martin was attacked with a crow bar. The robbers made off with more than £10,000. 'Martin was treated horrendously by the Post Office after suffering this ordeal and was told he was to pay back the money stolen in the robbery.' A few months later Martin was dead. He walked deliberately into the path of an oncoming bus. 'He was a proud, strong, clever man, a very able sportsman in his time, a loving husband and a fantastic father to his two children. The Post Office took all this away from us.'
Fiona Cowan
Fiona's husband Phil Cowan submitted a personal account for Nick Wallis to produce on his website https://www.postofficetrial.com/2019/01/the-horror-of-that-whole-post-office.html
He wrote, 'I used to be based in Edinburgh and was a reasonably successful businessman. I had multiple interests including a number of Shell service stations (back when there was still money in it), a Cash Converter and a valeting company. I was also slowly building a property portfolio.
With further diversification in mind I bought a post office on Parson's Green Terrace in Edinburgh and we opened on 5 Feb 2001.
The office had a sizeable retail area and the idea was that Fiona, my other half, would in due course, take over the running of the office allowing me to exploit the healthy Post Office footfall for retail purposes. I'd already had many years experience in this area via my service station outlets.' They were accused of stealing thousands of pounds from their branch.
The couple were visited by their area manager after weeks of discrepancies at their branch in Parsons Green, Edinburgh, culminating in a £30,000 shortfall. He said: 'I immediately called the area manager and he was there within the hour, with two forensic accountants. He took me aside and just asked, ‘How soon can you pay us back?’
'The three of them ransacked the place, emptying the office of all that had Post Office ownership – money, stamps, postal orders, alongside the terminals, scales and keys to the safes. We never opened again. They told us we were the only ones this was happening to.'
Fiona spiraled into depression after being wrongly accused and Phil said: “She had suffered previously because of a childhood experience and fear of going to court and jail distressed her hugely.” She passed away in her sleep in 2009 aged 47, after accidentally overdosing herself on anti-depressants and alcohol, leaving two sons, age 12 and 14.
Phil said: 'She died not knowing the Post Office charges had been dropped. There is every likelihood she would be here today if we had not been treated like this by the Post Office. It was the catalyst in her spiral downwards. It was heartbreaking to see her fall into such a painful depression.' The couple, who had been together for 10 years, were due to marry the following month. Phil also ran a number of petrol stations in the area but lost those contracts after the allegations of dishonesty.
Peter Holmes
The family of a former subpostmaster "have no doubt" his conviction for false accounting "contributed to his untimely death", the court of appeal has heard.
Peter Holmes was prosecuted in 2009 after a £46,000 shortfall appeared in the accounts of Jesmond post office in Newcastle. Mr Holmes, who blamed an error in the computing system, died of a brain tumour in 2015 aged 68.
Mr Holmes admitted trying to cover up the shortfall, but denied stealing any money from the branch and instead claimed the discrepancy was caused by an error in the Fujitsu-developed Horizon accounting system. Mr Holmes' wife Marion is continuing the appeal against his false accounting conviction as she wants to clear her husband's name, the court heard.
The family's barrister Sam Stein QC said Mr Holmes had been employed by the Post Office for more than 13 years, having been a police officer for 12 years before taking up the job.
Mr Stein said Mr Holmes' conviction caused a "loss of normality" with him unable to work or carry on volunteering as a driver for a cancer charity. In the years between his conviction and death, Mr Holmes "became depressed and withdrawn and slowly deteriorated", Mr Stein said.
All these stories not only make you feel physically sick thinking of all these people but so angry that no one was prepared to put two and two together that all of a sudden there couldn't be all this wrongdoing after a new computer system launch. It makes it even worse when years later you realise there were people who KNEW the system had problems before it even launched and then those that knowingly failed to disclose important information in trials and the destruction of documents relating to discussions of the Horizon system. The government still to this day still do not seem to care or offer a sincere apology.
On Tuesday 23rd March my MP Kate Osborne raised a question in parliament that I had helped prepare the night the before. She referred to 'Two Tiers of Justice' because of the new Historical Shortfall scheme.
She asked BEIS minister Paul Scully MP for Sutton and Cheam, if he agrees that, if justice is to be served, every victim of the Post Office IT scandal must have their claim validated under the same terms.
In reply, Scully gave no apology and expressed no sympathy for sub-postmasters affected by the scandal. He repeated his position that the settlement in 2019 was “full and final”.
On the following day conservative Lucy Allan MP for Telford, raised a question at PMQ's. She asked, 'My constituent Tracy Felstead is at the Court of Appeal today along with 41 other Sub Postmasters. She is seeking to clear her name in a grotesque miscarriage of justice, The Post Office Horizon Scandal. The court has heard that the institutional imperative to back a flawed IT system and to convict Sub Postmasters, destroying the lives of decent men and women in a ruthless determination to protect the Post Office come what may. Taxpayers will be picking up the bill for this multi million pound reckless wrongdoing. Does the Prime Minster agree with me that in order for justice to be truly done that those responsible for this failure and its cover up, must be held to account. Does he agree that, heads should roll.'
Boris Johnson responded, 'Well Mr Speaker, I certainly understand my Hon. Friend's strong feeling on this issue and her campaign is one I think is shared by many members across this House. Yes we do want to learn lessons, yes we do want to make sure the right people are held to account for what happened and that the Post Office never repeats mistakes like this again,' he said.
Here are a few other articles that have appeared over the past couple of days relating to this ongoing scandal :-
Prime Ministers Questions -
Paula Vennells walks away with £400,000 in pay and bonuses in 2019 -
Post Office told in 2013 that Fujitsu witness was unreliable
Look out for hopefully some better news in the days ahead!