Post Office scandal: Exhausted, angry, heartbroken

Victims of the Post Office scandal have been waiting years for justice.

More than 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted after the faulty Horizon computer system made it look like money was missing from their branch accounts.

Sir Wyn Williams has now published the first part of his report from the official inquiry into the scandal, focusing on the human impact as well as compensation.

Several former sub-postmasters travelled to the Oval cricket ground in London to see Sir Wyn deliver volume one of his report in person.

We spoke to some of those who were there, to hear about what impact the scandal had on their lives and to get their reactions to Sir Wyn’s findings.

Tracy Felstead was just 19 when she was sentenced to six months in prison in 2002. She was wrongly accused of stealing £11,503 while working at Camberwell Green Post Office in London.

She had her conviction quashed at the Court of Appeal in 2021.

“Emotional” is how she says she felt on reading Sir Wyn’s report, in which her personal story featured.

“It doesn’t matter how much therapy I go through, how much compensation you give me – I’ll never get that back,” she says.

“This was my first job and obviously, my life was over before it began.”

Even now, certain things “trigger the memory” of what she went through and “that trauma comes flooding back”.

Tracy, from Telford, Shropshire, is still waiting for full and final compensation.

“My claim is in, but they come back with 101 questions that you have to try and answer,” she says.

She hopes Sir Wyn’s recommendations will be implemented, but more than anything wants to move on with her life.

“For me, to get up in the morning and not think about this would be the best thing ever.

Seema Misra’s story is one of the most well-known of the scandal. She was jailed in 2010 while pregnant after being accused of stealing £74,000 from her Post Office branch. She was sent to prison on the day of her eldest son’s 10th birthday.

“I’ve got mixed emotions,” she says, reflecting on the publication of the report. “I feel heartbroken, angry – and happy, too, that it’s finally here.”

There are several recommendations in the report on financial redress, which it described as having been “bedevilled with unjustifiable delays”.

Seema says she’s hopeful that compensation payouts will speed up as a result.

“When we started the fight… we didn’t think it would take this long, at all. Hopefully now the government will listen and implement sooner rather than later,” she says.

The Post Office issued an unreserved apology for “a shameful period in our history”, but that doesn’t mean much to Seema.

“I don’t accept their apologies at all. Go behind bars and then I’ll think.”

Kathy McAlerney was a sub-postmistress in a small branch in the village of Litcham, in Northern Ireland.

Like others, unexplained shortfalls began appearing in her Horizon account.

Following an audit by the Post Office in 2007, she was suspended “on the spot” and pursued for years to pay back the money back, which, under the terms of her contract, she was liable to cover.

A year later, her contract was terminated. She was eight months pregnant with her fourth daughter at the time.

Her daughter is now 18 years old – and Kathy is still awaiting compensation.

Kathy came with her husband Patrick to see Sir Wyn deliver his report, which she really hopes will make a difference.

“We have been waiting so long. We’ve been waiting decades now. And we really just want to get to the point where we can put this behind us and move on with our lives.

“We are getting tired, you know. It’s exhausting.”

Post Office campaigner and former sub-postmistress Jo Hamilton says the government is now under pressure “to get a grip on redress” because Sir Wyn Williams is “on it”.

“They are under the cosh,” she says.

When it comes to compensation, she says it is “just mad” that the government is “spending millions on lawyers to pull the claims apart” that they have paid for to be brought.

She says Tuesday’s report is huge because it lays bare “the full scale of the horror that they unleashed on us”.

The investigations into who is culpable for that suffering will be “interesting”, she adds.

Sami Sabet was a successful businessman before deciding to leave the “rat race” and become a sub-postmaster for three post offices around Shoreham-by-Sea.

When he recognised shortfalls in his branch accounts in 2006, he contacted the Horizon helpdesk and spoke to regional managers about his problems, but was still prosecuted.

He ended up pleading guilty to fraud in 2009 to avoid prison, and received a suspended sentence. Even after his conviction was quashed in 2021, he says some of his neighbours still see him as a criminal.

Sami believes stress has “shortened my life considerably”.

He has had a heart attack and during open heart surgery lost some of his peripheral vision.

He also suffered from depression, anxiety and panic attacks, and says his personality changed.

Sami says that although Sir Wyn’s recommendations for compensation for more people are fair, there is a danger that could push compensation for him back even further.

“It has taken so long,” he says.

Sami was awarded compensation for intangible damages, such as the negative effects on his health, but is still waiting for compensation for the loss of his money and businesses.