A former sub-postmistress wrongly prosecuted over the Post Office IT scandal says she was unable to tell her father she would be okay before he recently died because she is still waiting for compensation several years on.
Sue Palmer was among more than 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses who faced legal action based on information from a faulty Horizon accounting system, which saw workers wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting.
The chairman of the inquiry into the scandal, Sir Wyn Williams, has called for legislative changes to resolve issues with what he described as “a patchwork quilt of compensation schemes… with some holes in it”.
Just short of £100m has been paid out so far by the Post Office and the government to people affected by the scandal.
Ms Palmer, who became a sub-postmistress in 2004, says she has yet to receive any compensation.
Speaking to Sky News, she said the scandal saw her lose her home of 22 years and she was forced to “go bankrupt”.
She said she received error notices from the Post Office about alleged discrepancies and was then taken to court for false accounting and theft before being cleared.
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She told Sky News: “I had a three-day trial, it took them about 10-15 minutes to find me not guilty. Then the newspaper printed that I was (guilty).”
“I really struggled then.”
She said she was unable to get the Post Office to get back to her despite being cleared of wrongdoing. “It was like they were making an example of me, because I stood up to them.”
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‘I don’t want fortunes’
During her ordeal with the Post Office, she said: “They sent the bailiffs around one day [the High Court sheriffs] and put the furniture in the front garden so everybody could see. It’s like the final humiliation.
“Our lives have never been the same. My husband is not the same, I don’t speak to my eldest son because of it, so I have got a fractured family.
“We keep being told we will get full, fair, final compensation. Well, I am 19 years down the line.”
She said she just wants “to be able to live. I don’t want fortunes”.
“They took away everything we have ever worked for. I had to sell everything I had. The only thing I kept was my wedding ring. My dad passed away a few weeks ago. I couldn’t even tell him I would be okay. That’s all I wanted. To be able to say to him, ‘don’t worry dad, I will be alright’.”
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Shazia Saddiq, another former sub-postmistress who used to run three post offices in Newcastle upon Tyne, says she has received a “minimal amount” in compensation and “with the losses I made, it didn’t even touch the sides”.
Ms Saddiq said she was accused of taking £40,000. She said she had to pay £10,000 out of her own pocket.
“They won’t get anything else from me”, she said, adding the situation had been “torturous”.
“We can’t move on, there is no closure, they are keeping us in fight mode.”
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‘We lost everything’
She told Sky News: “This [scandal] has had a devastating effect on myself and my immediate family.
“We lost everything, we lost our home, we lost our business, the community I served.”
She said she has been assaulted by the public with flour thrown at her in the street and called a thief.
Ms Saddiq said: “I have been dealing with the issue of large discrepancy for over a decade. To keep somebody in this sort of fight mode for such a long time is torturous.
“We need full and fair compensation.”
A Post Office spokesperson said: “We welcome Sir Wyn’s interim report and share his view that victims of the Horizon scandal must be provided with full compensation, fairly and consistently. This remains our priority.”
They said across compensation arrangements, offers totalling more than £120m have been made to around 2,500 postmasters, with the majority of these agreed and paid.
“We can confirm that we continue to accept eligible late applications and publish data each month showing the progress we’re making in resolving these applications and the level of compensation paid,” the spokesperson added.
