Feeling she needed to grovel for compensation solely deepened Jo Hamilton’s anguish after a two-decade struggle with the Post Office.
It was solely three weeks in the past the ultimate cost was acquired, she revealed to Sky News.
And the sub-postmistresses, whose wrongful conviction was central to the TV drama concerning the defective accounting scandal, fears different victims are nonetheless going through a “wicked” system.
It is why she was not shocked to learn disputed claims on Sunday by former Post Office chairman Henry Staunton that funds are being slowed by the federal government to restrict outgoings forward of the election.
“We’ve been fighting this war now for decades, and this is the kind of behaviour we’ve just known to expect,” Ms Hamilton advised Sky News at her Hampshire residence.
“We listened to the government’s warm words over and over and over again, saying they’re sorting out the money at pace, they’re going to be fair with the postmasters and none of it is true.”
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch insists dashing up compensation funds are a authorities precedence and the Sunday Times interview featured lies from Mr Staunton – who she ousted from the Post Office after barely a yr as chairman.
Mr Staunton was not accessible for an interview when approached by Sky News on Sunday forward of Ms Badenoch’s tweets.
One answer to this strand of the scandal, in line with Ms Hamilton, is taking the compensation fund out of the federal government’s fingers.
“There must be commercial companies that could deal with it,” she mentioned.
“Nobody believes the government anymore. And the way they’ve treated the postmasters is disgraceful and it’s cruel. People are getting older. As if it hasn’t gone on long enough, they’re still trying not to pay the group.”
The authorities insists it welcomes compensation claims, whereas the Post Office backs quicker redress for victims.
But has the tradition that led to one in every of Britain’s greatest miscarriages of justice modified?
“The whole culture of the company is they still think it’s where the postmasters are thieving and it’s just wicked,” Ms Hamilton mentioned.
“We beat them in court in 2018 and 2019. We had the two judgements in 2019 and it’s now 2024 and they… are still fighting the group. Still fighting for their money.”
Ms Hamilton was charged with theft and false accounting after a £36,000 shortfall was found at her publish workplace in South Warnborough, Hampshire in 2006. She agreed to plead responsible to the lesser cost of false accounting and was given a 12-month group order. Her conviction was quashed in 2021.
And now the main target helps different Post Office victims overturn convictions for theft and fraud attributable to the defective Fujitsu accounting system.
It is a gruelling mission however one she is decided to proceed with Alan Bates, whose marketing campaign for justice impressed final month’s four-part ITV drama that sparked authorities intervention halfway by the long-running impartial inquiry into the scandal.
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“It’s really hard not to let it consume me because it’s so unfair what they’ve done to people and what they’re still putting people through is disgusting,” Ms Hamilton mentioned.
“I obviously have a platform because of the drama. I can’t leave my colleagues behind because without them, I wouldn’t be here. We’re in it together.
“Alan, of all of the folks, they nonetheless put up a struggle with Alan. They ought to know him by now. Really?”
Source: information.sky.com”