EXCLUSIVE Subpostmistress remembers 'terror' of supporting her young children during the Horizon IT scandal on new Mail podcast
Former subpostmistress Pamela Church revealed she suffered panic attacks and felt as though she'd 'let everyone down' after going bankrupt due to the Horizon IT scandal on a new Mail podcast.
On the latest episode of 'The Apple & The Tree', Pamela, 47 told daughter Rebekah Foot, 28, of her experience losing everything after becoming embroiled in what is seen as the largest miscarriage of justice in British history.
The podcast, hosted by the Reverend Richard Coles, brings together parents and their adult children to answer questions about their shared family history.
The Horizon IT scandal was a faulty Post Office computer system that falsely showed financial shortfalls at branches across the country.
The fault led to over 700 subpostmasters being wrongfully prosecuted and convicted for theft and fraud between 1999 and 2015.
'I remember being seen as a pillar of the community', Pamela said.
'But once all that happened, everyone thought we were dodgy. We were shut down in 2015.
'It bankrupted me. I tried to keep as much of it away from my children as possible, but I started suffering really bad panic attacks.'
The mother-of-three recounted collapsing in the toilet in front of her young daughter due to the stress of being pursued for tens of thousands of pounds.
The technical fault potentially affected as many as 25,000 postmasters, yet fewer than 2,500 have been compensated.
She told the podcast: 'It got to a really bad point where I could not carry on. I felt like I was a massive letdown.
'I'd had this massive panic attack – I was in the bathroom. My young daughter saw me on the floor and then took herself to school.
'My daughter told the school's receptionist: 'Mummy's poorly, she's not well and I can't live without her.
'After that, I went to the doctors, and they proscribed me fluoxetine. It stopped the panic attacks, and I started seeing a future again.
'But everything had been taken away: I was bankrupt, I had no money, no business – at least I still had my children and my partner. They set me up to go forward.'
Pamela remembered noticing something was wrong when she ran both the old and new bookkeeping systems at her north Wales Post Office and discrepancies of thousands of pounds appeared.
Despite her protests, the Post Office threatened to seize her business unless she made up the shortfall.
'My first panic attack, £10,000 had gone missing out of the Post Office and they phoned me up and told me I had to pay it.
'They said if I didn't, they'd take my business away from me. I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was going to die.
'I collapsed with my daughter Evie in my arms. When I woke up, I saw my daughter playing in a pool of my blood.'
The truth about the scandal emerged through persistent legal action by subpostmasters who took the first High Court case against the Post Office in 2019, securing a £43 million settlement.
It gained widespread public attention in January 2024 after the ITV drama 'Mr Bates vs The Post Office' brought the issue to millions of viewers.
Pamela said she hasn't yet completed all the paperwork for her compensation as she 'doesn't want to bring back' memories of the scandal.
'I am in an alright sort of place at the moment', she said.
'I don't want to bring it back. But I know that if I want my claim to go forward, I have to finish all this paperwork. I will do it, just in my own time.'
To listen to the full episode, where Pamela remembers her Post Office being robbed at gunpoint when she was five months pregnant, search for 'The Apple & The Tree' now, wherever you get your podcasts.
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