Around the House: The challenge to speed up justice and pay up for victims of two national scandals
Borders MP David Mundell addresses many victims' hopes for senior figures to be prosecuted.
The next edition of Around The House is on Thursday 11 September.
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BBC News
2 days ago
- BBC News
Wrongly accused Birmingham postmaster returns for her dad
A woman returning to her family Post Office business after being wrongly accused of theft in the Horizon scandal says she is doing it for her Gill ran the Wattville Road Post Office in Handsworth, Birmingham, which was started by her father. But that ended when, due to a faulty Post Office computer system - and like hundreds of other postmasters and mistresses - she was falsely said to have stolen money. Now, more than a decade on from an ordeal that left her feeling suicidal, she is about to work there said her dad had been "devastated" by the accusation, "so for him I want to stand back there and say 'I didn't do it'." Her alleged wrongdoing - for which she was later fully exonerated - meant the Post Office dismissed her from the branch, which was based within a shop also run by the banished from the branch, taken over by a third party, she was able to continue working at the shop, which meant she still saw her old customers. Her dad - whom she said was among the first British Asian postmasters outside of London - died before her exoneration and the scale of the scandal was laid bare, although he had supported her through the Gill is due to get back the keys to the branch next week. She said she had been determined to take the helm once more. "I think it's going to be amazing," she said. "It's going to be emotional, but it's going to be exciting."But it comes after she lost her home, her car, and her reputation in the wake of the try to balance the books and stay out of jail, she said she ended up missing card and mortgage payments. The first report from the official inquiry into the scandal said last month the events had had a "disastrous" impact on those accused. Ms Gill first became aware of problems at her Post Office when accounts were falling short and she could not understand why."One day it would be one amount and the next day it would be a different amount. Figures were duplicating," she said."I just couldn't understand what the problem was or why."At the time, she had no idea that hundreds of other postmasters were in the same position as morning, her world came crashing down around her."The auditors came and did a stock balance and realised how much was short and I was asked to leave - hand back the keys, there and then, and they brought in interims to run the Post Office the next day," she said."It was horrible. Absolutely horrible." 'I lost everything' In the aftermath of her dismissal, Ms Gill and her husband's marriage suffered, with both knowing they had not taken any money and wondering where it had gone"I couldn't face anybody for a long time. I was depressed," she said."I lost my house, I lost my car, I lost everything."Things just got on top of me at one stage and I didn't want to be here, I tried to take my life. "Luckily now I'm here, but things could have been a lot different."The Post Office Horizon scandal broke into the public attention many years later, heightened by the ITV drama series Mr Bates vs The Post Gill said she felt angry over her experience, adding: "It was just anger not understanding why we didn't know other people had the same problem or why the Post Office hadn't done anything about it to rectify it and why it took a programme or a podcast for people to realise what was going on." While Ms Gill has been exonerated, an "amazing" point in her life, several of her loved ones are not here to see it."I lost my husband, my mom also passed away after I'd been convicted," she her father supported her after she was dismissed, selling a property to fund the missing money, he died before his daughter was cleared, and before news of the scandal became public."I just wish he'd been here to actually see or hear something, just a clip - maybe there's a chance," she said."But no. But I know he's watching, I know he knows." Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Daily Mirror
5 days ago
- Daily Mirror
DWP orders probe into postmaster prosecutions amid calls to 'come clean'
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has ordered an 'independent assurance review' into prosecutions of Post Office staff for alleged welfare offences during the Horizon IT scandal Dozens of prosecutions of subpostmasters by the Department for Work and Pensions ( DWP) are set to be looked at by a new probe. Around 100 people were taken to court by the Government department between 2001 and 2006 while the Horizon IT scandal unfolded, and 61 were convicted. The DWP now faces calls to "come clean" about its actions. They were prosecuted over allegations of welfare-related fraud - which many claim they did to settle balances due to the faulty computer system. They say they have yet to be properly exonerated. The DWP has confirmed it will be commissioning an "independent assurance review" to look into its handling of the prosecutions. It comes after Gordon Brown blasts the return of 'poverty of 60 years ago' as he makes one big demand. READ MORE: Fury as small boat detentions begin amid threat of human rights legal challenges Hundreds of postmasters and staff were prosecuted and lost their savings and livelihood after dodgy software made it look like money was missing from their branches. Convictions of more than 700 who were wrongly pursued by the Post Office were torn up last January. At least 13 are believed to have taken their own lives, a public inquiry found. Public anger grew after ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office screened last year, highlighting the harrowing ordeals scandal victims endured. Questions remain over prosecutions by the DWP - but it insists there is "no evidence" the Horizon system, made by Fujitsu, was used to secure convictions. It emerged last year that the DWP had taken part in joint investigations alongside the Post Office, piling pressure on the department to look again at its actions. Labour peer Lord Sikka said: "The DWP has never come clean about its prosecution of postmasters. After nearly 30 years the slow progress of the DWP investigations, lack of urgency and transparency is very disappointing. No postmaster should be excluded from the review." A DWP spokesman said: 'We have committed to commissioning an independent assurance review where Post Office members of staff were prosecuted by the Department for welfare-related fraud. 'These cases involved complex investigations and were backed by evidence including filmed surveillance, stolen benefit books and witness statements – to date, no documentation has been identified showing that Horizon data was essential to these prosecutions.' The new review will look at how DWP investigators gathered an reviewed evidence during the Horizon scandal. It will also assess the thoroughness and adequacy of efforts to obtain case documents. But it will not review or comment on individual cases prosecuted by the DWP. Many cases are believed to centre around stolen pension dockets. One victim, referred to as Holly, told The Sunday Times she was convicted of theft and ended up serving four months behind bars. "Twenty years later years later, I have moved on with my life to the best I can but the impact it has had on me, and my family, has been something else," she said. Holly told the newspaper she thinks she was blamed for pensions dockets that had been cashed. Subpostmaster Roger Allen, from Norwich, was convicted in 2004 of stealing pension payments by the DWP. He was jailed for six months. The family of Mr Allen, who died last March, are determined he will still be exonerated. Daughter Keren Simpson said: "He couldn't even talk about it, it was so difficult for him. I wanted him to know that I wouldn't give up. And I won't." In a long-awaited document last month(JULY) Sir Wyn Williams, who chairs the Horizon IT Inquiry, said Post Office chiefs should have known the faulty software could produce false data. He estimated 10,000 people may be eligible for compensation - saying postmasters and their families should be regarded as "victims of wholly unacceptable behaviour" by the Post Office and Fujitsu. The report said at least 13 people are believed to have taken their own lives as a result of the impact of the Horizon scandal, including Martin Griffiths, 59, who deliberately stepped in front of a bus in 2013. And Sir Wyn revealed 59 others had contemplated suicide - including 10 who attempted to do so.
Times
6 days ago
- Times
Dozens of forgotten Post Office victims finally secure review
Subpostmasters prosecuted by the Department for Work and Pensions during the Horizon computer scandal are to have their cases reviewed by the government. Horizon was a faulty accounting system created by the Japanese software company Fujitsu that showed incorrect shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts. The Post Office blamed the subpostmasters and successfully prosecuted more than 700 of them between 1999 and 2015. Tireless campaigning by Sir Alan Bates and others meant they were exonerated en masse in January last year, although by then many had lost businesses, families, reputations and, in some cases, their lives. Separately, however, the DWP carried out its own prosecutions until 2012. Between 2001 and 2006, it secured the convictions of 61 Post Office employees for welfare-related fraud offences, mainly involving cashing stolen pensions dockets which many subpostmasters claim they did only to settle Horizon balances. They claim they are also the victims of the Post Office scandal — but they have not been exonerated. Now the DWP has said it will undertake an 'independent assurance review' of these cases. 'They put me in the back of a car' One of those who will have their case reviewed is Holly*, who began a career in a Post Office as a clerk in northeast England aged 20. Her name has been changed for this article. 'My role at the Post Office did not include balancing of the accounts: this was left to the postmaster. When the postmaster was on holiday, a temporary postmaster would come in,' she said. Shortly afterwards, in 2003 when she was six months pregnant, she was barred from entering the branch by someone who said they were from the 'Post Office investigation team'. 'They took my car keys and put me in the back of a car. I was firstly taken home so they could search the house. I was asked if there was anything in the house that they needed to be aware of,' Holly said. She was taken to a police station and held in a cell until questioning. 'I had no legal representation or union worker; I was on my own.' During a second interview, the issue of stolen benefit books was brought up. 'I remember being questioned about benefit books that had been cashed. This was the first time that these were mentioned,' she said. 'I was asked about transactions that were made and payments which were made for each transaction. This was when I began to understand what the last few months had all been about.' • After the Post Office scandal, I'm a cleaner for those who supported me Holly denies she had anything to do with the shortfall. She suspects she was unfairly blamed for pensions dockets that had been cashed. She said that, during the trial, 'my biggest memory was the prosecution telling the jury that I knew how to defraud the Post Office. The jury gave their verdict of guilty of theft.' She was told she would receive a suspended sentence due to having a young baby but ended up serving four months of a 15-month custodial sentence. She then had to wear an electronic tag for about four months and attend a probation centre every week. When she heard about the review, she said she was 'not getting my hopes up' that her conviction would be wiped. 'I'm not expecting anything,' she said. 'I don't want to build myself because I have been here so many times and been let down. My expectations are zero.' She added: 'Twenty years later years later, I have moved on with my life to the best I can but the impact it has had on me, and my family, has been something else.' Mr Allen v the Court of Appeal The DWP review will not include those who have already had their cases rejected by the Court of Appeal. One of those is Roger Allen, a subpostmaster from Norwich who spent six months in prison in 2004 after being convicted of a £37,000 fraud. The Horizon system was installed in his branch and his daughter, Keren Simpson, remembers her father 'coming home from work every week and he would always say that the balances didn't match up'. The DWP presented him with unsigned pension booklets that had been cashed in. Allen took his case to the Court of Appeal in 2021 but the judge said he was 'wholly unpersuaded … that this is, indeed, a Horizon case.' Roger Allen and his daughter Keren, below A document from 2003 showed the DWP, the police and the Post Office worked together to secure convictions. It has since emerged that tactics used by Post Office investigators in interviewing subpostmasters and retrieving evidence to secure convictions was unethical. Before Allen died in March last year, his daughter promised him she would fight to overturn his conviction. 'He'd given up,' said Simpson. 'He couldn't even talk about it, it was so difficult for him. I wanted him to know that I wouldn't give up. And I won't.' 'Dad did what he did because of Horizon' Alan Robinson, 83, from Halifax in West Yorkshire, was also convicted by the DWP. After Horizon was installed in his branch in May 2000 he started to notice shortfalls. He says he made good the losses by cashing spare pensions dockets and leaving the money in the till to balance the books. 'I robbed Peter to pay Paul,' Robinson said. He was accused of stealing £43,000 and given 12 months in prison when he was 62. Robinson failed to have the sentence overturned at the Court of Appeal. 'Dad did what he did because of the Horizon system,' his daughter Sarah Finnell said. She believes that those pursued by the DWP should have the same blanket exoneration as those in the Post Office prosecutions. 'They are both government organisations,' she said. 'They [the DWP and Post Office] worked together to secure convictions. All of those convictions, not just Post Office, should be deemed unsafe' Lord Sikka, the Labour peer who has been campaigning for a review of the DWP convictions, said: 'There are scandals within the Post Office scandal. The DWP has never come clean about its prosecution of postmasters. After nearly 30 years the slow progress of the DWP investigations, lack of urgency and transparency is very disappointing. No postmaster should be excluded from the review, as at the time of the original prosecutions and subsequent appeals, the flaws in the accounting systems were not publicly known. Those unfairly prosecuted and their families deserve justice'. A DWP spokesman said: 'We have committed to commissioning an independent assurance review where Post Office members of staff were prosecuted by the department for welfare-related fraud. 'These cases involved complex investigations and were backed by evidence including filmed surveillance, stolen benefit books and witness statements. To date, no documentation has been identified showing that Horizon data was essential to these prosecutions.' Despite her father's case not being part of the review, Simpson said she would continue the fight to clear his name. 'It feels like a bit of a hopeless mission at times,' she said. 'But I do still believe that the truth will prevail.'
