Hounding over Post Office IT scandal ‘nearly killed me’
A FORMER sub-postmistress caught up in the Post Office IT scandal yesterday told how her health deteriorated as she was left thousands of pounds in debt.
Wendy Martin, who opened her own branch in York, told an inquiry that the stress “nearly killed me”. More than 700 Post Office branch staff were prosecuted between 2000 and 2014, based on information from the flawed Horizon IT system. But in December 2019, a High Court judge ruled that Horizon contained a number of “bugs, errors and defects” and there was a “material risk” that shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts were caused by the system.
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Ms Martin said she immediately started facing problems with the Horizon software, including transactions that disappeared.
She said the stress of being liable for the shortfalls while fighting to get the Post Office to fix the issue caused her health to deteriorate. Ms Martin said: “It nearly killed me. It devastated our lives and we need repaying and we need compensation.”
She said she suffered kidney infections and a suspected stroke after closing the branch in early 2016.
Ms Martin, who is now thousands of pounds in debt, said she “still lost everything” despite never being prosecuted, which means she may not be entitled to compensation.
Another former sub-postmistress claimed that Post Office officials told her no one else was having computer issues like she was.
Susan Hazzleton, 68, was accused of stealing £300 in 2001 when auditors checked the accounts of the branch that she had run in Chelmsford, Essex, since 1995.
Mrs Hazzleton said the shortfalls began to “snowball”. She said she repeatedly rang a helpline but received little assistance.
She said she ultimately paid the Post Office £4,300 to cover the missing funds before she was accused of taking the £300.
Mrs Hazzleton was suspended and later arrested for theft – although the prosecution dropped the case 18 months later.
The inquiry, at the International Dispute Resolution Centre in London, is looking into whether the Post Office knew about faults in the IT system.
A group of cross-party MPs has called on the Government to fully compensate all victims of the flawed IT system.
