A bunch of sub-postmasters wrongly accused of stealing greater than £100,000 from the Post Office have advised Sky News there have to be prison prosecutions in opposition to these in cost.
Vipin Patel, Nicki Arch and Sarah Osolinski, who ran Post Offices in Oxford, Stroud and Cheltenham respectively, have described how their lives had been destroyed by the Horizon IT scandal.
Mrs Osolinski mentioned these in cost on the Post Office have to be held to account.
“There are people with questions to answer. People that lied to the High Court. People that lied to the government and that’s got to be a crime. If what we did was a crime, then what they did is 100 times worse because they were the ones that punished us for trying to keep our heads above water.”
Mr Patel was given an 18-week suspended sentence in 2011 after being charged with stealing £75,000 whereas operating Horspath Post Office.
His conviction was quashed in 2020.
“I had to borrow some money off my sister – about £10,000 – I had to cash in my Royal Mail pension and then we had to sell my wife’s gold to balance the books,” he mentioned.
He described the second Post Office auditors visited his store: “I went upstairs and said ‘God, I want to die, I don’t want to live anymore’ – because I knew the repercussions of this were going to be catastrophic and disastrous.”
Mr Patel says he’s but to obtain any compensation.
Nicki Arch was wrongly accused of stealing £26,000. She was sacked and confronted a three-day trial at Bristol Crown Court in 2002. She was discovered not responsible.
“They’re corrupt to the core,” she mentioned of the Post Office.
“They’ve lied and behaved disgustingly from the day this all came about. You think, it’s 24 years for me and I’ve never, ever seen any decent behaviour coming from them.”
She can be calling for bosses on the centre of the inquiry to face prison expenses.
“All those who broke the law must see British law, they must be prosecuted because that’s what we do in this country.”
But Nicki defined that the Post Office can by no means totally compensate for the affect it has had on her.
“Within two weeks it was all in the local newspapers that I’d stolen from pensioners, and I got spat at in the supermarket. So I just shut myself in for 18 months and never, ever went out. And you can’t behave like that and it not have a lifetime effect on you.
“It adjustments you endlessly and there’s no going again. You simply study to stay. Every morning I get up and suppose ‘nice, new day’ after which suppose ‘oh God, Post Office’.
“The pain will always be there, the memories will always be there… the screaming, the shouting, we have lived through horrific times, suicidal times.”
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Mrs Osolinski ran a submit workplace close to Newport, South Wales. She defined how she would cowl shortfalls of between £90 and £1,000 each week for 2 years.
She was pressured to promote her residence and use all her life financial savings.
“I’m left now as a retired person of 67 with chronic pain, depression, anxiety – all because I was trying to do my job. You just carry on,” she added.
“I get flashbacks to the time and they’re not pleasant and I do think about it a lot and how different it would be and what I would be doing now.
“Because being a postmaster or postmistress is like being on the centre of an enormous prolonged household since you get to know your clients, you get to care about your clients. They get to care about you.”
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Mr Patel said the Post Office was always a brand built on trust.
“The largest factor the Post Office has accomplished is damaged the belief of the individuals who served them – and so they have stabbed us within the again.”
Last week the federal government introduced plans to overturn the convictions of greater than 900 individuals concerned within the scandal, in addition to a brand new compensation payout of £75,000 – though it acknowledges this might not be sufficient for a lot of.
The ongoing public inquiry is because of publish its findings subsequent yr.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can name Samaritans for assistance on 116 123 or e mail [email protected] within the UK. In the US, name the Samaritans department in your space or 1 (800) 273-TALK
Source: information.sky.com”