A brief synopsis of my case is as follows.

I bought a Post Office in November 2002 and had training for 1 week but had to rely on staff who had worked there for many years when dealing with transactions that had not occurred during my week of training. On three occassions I asked my line manager and then BDM about discrepancies and was told don't worry they will sort themselves out. Initially we put the money in but when the losses increased we could not afford to do so. I balanced every week even when the system changed to the trading period balances,

Each week these figures were sent by Horizon to Chesterfield so they would have been aware that I was having problems. No one contacted me at all (Lack of due care and attention by PO Ltd). I was audited in Autumn 2008 and was asked if there were any problems and I said yes there was a shortfall in the cash amounting to £27k. I was interviewed under caution having previously had my house searched by the fraud people. During 2008 I received a restraint order in the Post. This was on both my bank accounts, my house, my car, my pensions and what little savings I had. It took my solicitor till early 2009 to get this lifted on the bank accounts.

Subsequently I appeared twice at the magistrates court and then at Crown Court and pleaded guilty to two counts of false accounting. My barrister advised me to plead guilty or risk the likelihood of going to jail. I was sentenced to community service and to repay PO what they say I owe them. I have not taken a penny and have always said that in my opinion there were faults with the system and that errors were made. But looking at the PO contract PO have no interest in looking for errors as they know the postmaster is liable. I am back in Court for judgement relating to the "Proceeds of Crime" investigation that have taken place. My solicitors have told me to keep quiet but I have nothing to lose. I have no money, I am constantly being harassed by credit card and banks. What else can I do?

Sept 2007 me and my husband purchased a village shop and PO.

Difficulties - the training had not covered how to properly balance the office, locate discrepancies, deal with TCs. Ongoing discrepancies which, at first, we felt resulted from inexperience. Sought support from NBSC: told there was no possibility of anyone visiting the office to assist/provide additional training. Requested training for husband and was told I had to train staff myself.

Summer 2009 – unannounced visit from POL auditor. Auditor stated there were shortages. I was suspended and the office closed, POL said this was temporary. POL wanted to put in cover to keep office open, and wanted me to attend meeting at Leeds. I was not provided with information re any formal procedure/outcome. However I received my August payslip and discovered suspension was without pay. Decision made not to have any further dealings with POL. Sent letter of resignation, PO remained closed and cleared from shop.

Ongoing demand from POL for c£2250 allegedly cash shortage + missing stock items. We have countered this by demanding outstanding commission for August, notice pay + refund of incorrect TC.

The Post Office suspended me for 'falsifying accounts'. This issues relates to lottery scratchcards and it was at their instruction to 'inflate the scratchcard figure because it was the only way I could roll over into the next Branch Trading period.The inflated figure was picked by their auditors in 2008 recognising that there was an ongoing dispute between POL and myself.

I went on holday in late 2008 (holiday agreed and formally authorised by POL) and had not even reached my hotel when I was told that the auditors had arrived! I was suspended whilst I was on holiday and my pay etc.stopped from that day.The auditors commented I had 'ruffled a few feathers'. ( I had contacted Adam Crozier & Alan Cook) Needless to say everything turned upside down.

Anyway I was interveiwed-forced to pay£4500-00+. This is money I know for a fact that I do not owe to POL.If I did not pay,my contract would have been terminated. There is lot of detail behind these lottery issues(intertwined with Horizon) which I cannot go into at the minute-suffice to say POL are not even following their own procedures.

I was reinstated with a final warning.

I have now decided to put the business up for sale-cannot put my wife under any more stress-our losses (her hard earned money) to date are in the region of £30,000.

We took over our post office and shop in 1998 and Horizon arrived in October 2000. Having been involved with EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale) systems for many years before running a post office, it seemed to be a good step forward. How wrong I was, it turned out to a ‘pig in a poke’, an utter travesty, it was something out of the ark. It’s key flaw was that it did not allow me or my staff to fully access the data which we had input into the system. You could run a few basic reports but it was totally inadequate to keep track of all the transactions and all the hundreds of thousands of pounds which flowed through the business each month.

Then there were the bugs in the software. Just a few weeks after the system had been installed an overnight software upgrade resulted in over £5000 of system generated duplications having to be reversed out of just one weeks’ balance ( and those were ones I found ! ). Having documented in detail what had happened for the PO and them ignoring my comments, I had little option but to point out to them that I was unable to accept financial liability for the figures generated by the Horizon system without full access to check the data either my staff or I had entered into the system. They refused to answer that letter and the many others I sent them asking them to sort out the problems. Taken to an extreme, if the Horizon system said I owed £1,000,000 the Post Office could under their interpretation require me to make good the loss without delay, without question and without full access to the data.

Not once over a three years period did Post Office Ltd ever respond to the points of liability and system access that I had raised either in correspondence or in person. Though in a letter from them in May 2003 they stated I would be failing to meet my obligation under a section of the contract which states “The Subpostmaster is responsible for all losses caused through his own negligence, carelessness or error, and also for losses of all kinds caused by his Assistants. Deficiencies due to such losses must be made good without delay” and which “failure to comply with these obligations can be construed as a Breach of Contract, which could ultimately put your Contract for Service ‘at risk”. My response informed them that I would gladly make good any losses caused in these manners though I also reiterated I was unable to accept liability of system generated figures without access to the data to check it. In fact the contract was so old it didn’t even cover new technologies. Post Office Ltd then terminated my contract under a clause not requiring them to state a reason, and they walked off with my livelihood and the £65,000 I had paid for the post office.

Then there was the Federation - what a waste of time, money and space! See full story at www.postofficevictims.org.uk

My story starts in October 2005 when I was suspended for an unexplained loss of £1900. I was reinstated but within a month another unknown amount related to a cheque error appeared. I reported it to contract manager who had a correction raised and promised to look into first instance as it was identical. Nothing happened so Fed was called in to help. They couldn’t do anything.

In Aug 2006 another instance occurred. Chesterfield confirmed my processing was o.k. but couldn’t do anything to correct it. This loss of £463 then compounded itself monthly until sept 2008 when the office was shut down following an audit. I allegedly owe just over £10,000 despite me already having paid over £13,000. At my meeting I believed it would be sorted out, as it was last time. Post office have refused to answer direct questions about what happened in Aug 2006 7 times. They are now ignoring my letters. At my appeal the post office person agreed with me about the doubling up of debts then left it out of the report. Effectively the Post Office have planted a sum in my accounts and then added that deficit every month.

I am now waiting to see what happens now I have refused to pay their last demand.

I took over the village shop and post office in autumn 2001. 2 months later the lady who ran the post office left and I was given 5 half days training between Xmas and New Year. Sadly I served about 6 people and so learnt very little.I subsequently became subpostmaster in 2003 and had no problems until the pin pad and electronic transactions were put in place.

I recieved no training with the new technology and so when I balanced one wednesday in October 2003 and was over £2000 short I rang the HELPdesk!! Instead of helping they instructed me to perform a number of things on the Horizon system and the deficit proceeded to double!!I was now over £4000 short!! I rang over and over again insisting that this was not my fault but they would have none of it. I was told I had to pay the money back! When I said I couldn't they proceeded to take it out of my wages. After I finished that I had another £750 discrepancy. Yet again I insisted it was wrong and yet again they took my wages. I then kept shovelling money in to right each shortage thinking it must be my fault, until I ran out of money. I then let the shortage grow and grow ,feeling terrified and powerless,until one day I couldn't stand the pressure.

I rang and asked the federation for help and they threw me to the lions!!! It took the Post office 3 days to come and audit my office,which took place behind closed doors without anyone else present.They subsequently came to my house and interviewed me . When eventually they reached a figure of some £36000 short I was charged with THEFT!!! Several months later,thinking I was the only subpostmaster this was happening to,my solicitor did a deal with the prosecution. I remortgaged my house,borrowed and was generously given enough money to repay the post office in full in order to get them to drop the theft charge. I had to plead guilty to 14 counts of False Accounting in Crown Court and only escaped prison because 70+ people turned up to support me.

Our problems started in about December 2005 with a shortage of £500.

We didn’t have £500 so we had to accept the figure to carry on trading. We put money in every week but the difference kept increasing. By the time of the audit in January 2007 it had reached £5000. We were not allowed to watch them perform the audit and they told us the figure was £12,000. I was suspended that day and had to go the interview the following day. The interview was anything but informal as it was recorded and I was allowed no representation.

I was summonsed in April 2007 I was charged with theft and falsifying accounts. I went to crown court in October 2007. The Post Office dropped the theft charge as long as I pleaded guilty to the other. The judge stated that she could not understand why I was there as there was no evidence but as I had pleaded guilty I was given 150hours community service.

We put our office up for sale and immediately had a buyer. We almost reached completion when our extremely profitable Rural Commercial office was put on the closure list. We went bankrupt in April 2008, we have lost our house our business all our savings and live in rented accommodation.

i have had my post office for 5 1/2 years with no bother, in april this i had a shortfall then again in may about 3 thousand just dissapeared. i tried everything to try to sort it out phone calls to the helpline, the union, letters to various people, more phone calls, i asked for an audit as i had never had one, and got a audit/training officer, who never found anything to explain the loss of money, i felt more accused than anything, did friends or family have access to the post office? where did i keeep my keys? did i rem in wrong, or could i have put it in the bin !!

finally i tried to appeal, they were no help and suggested i go back to the helpline, there was no point i have already being doing this since april. the outcome of it all is that i am paying back £100 back every month until october 2011,and out of a wage of roughlly £500, im feeling the loss. i have kept up to date with all the letters in dear jac, and dont feel alone i would like to know details of the meeting.

It was late in 2006 when I bought my Post Office. At my interview, I was told that I would receive full training and back up from Post Office Ltd. Sadly the Post Office broke their promises and a few months later when I needed help, it was not there. Instead, all I received were demands and threatening letters.

I have been suspended from running my Post Office, the reason given was that Post Office Ltd, lacked confidence in me and I was considered not fit to run it. I am in my fifty's, have a Grammar School education, I have bought and sold 6 successful businesses. I have worked as a cashier in a Casino, employed as a Manager in a Ten Pin Bowling Centre and worked as a Prison Officer. At present I am still successfully running my own business and I am also Station Manager for a Hospital Radio Station. Believe me running a Post Office is not beyond me.

We should be looking at Post Office Ltd and questioning whether or not their fit to operate their business. Many people believe they are not fit, even MP's in parliament are asking very serious questions. On this website is just a small sample of many cases, where decent, honest people have lost so much, because of the way the Post Office Ltd run their business. The Post Office is a powerful beast but if we join forces, we can bring justice to good people who provide the public with an essential service.

In 2005 I bought a newsagents with a Post Office. I had one weeks’ training with P/O centre and a few days in the P/O with a trainer. Was only shown the balance once?

I struggled initially although one of the staff I inherited with the business helped me out with the basics. I asked P/O many times for further help with balancing and was told they had no one available or they did not do that anymore. The help line could be hit and miss. When errors did occur they said they would sort themselves out so not to worry. It never occurred to me anything could be wrong as I thought it would be picked up in Chesterfield when I sent the paperwork to them.

On one occasion a cheque had doubled up and my area manager came down and spent 4 hours trying to find out what had happened. Even she could not understand the complexity of the horizon system, in the end she advised me to contact Chesterfield for more info. Information that never arrived!

After 2.5 years in office, out of the blue I was visited by a team of auditors and an investigation team.

They made me feel like a criminal and I felt very intimidated by the whole process. After the audit I was suspended without pay pending an investigation as they said the Horizon system findings showed the office was down by £11,500 which I would have to pay back. I objected as I did not have that kind of money. I went to a meeting a few weeks later to show my documents in support of being reinstated. The representative I had with me commented he thought I had been set up. It made me wonder why he would say that.

While I was waiting for the P/O to come back with their findings I received a letter to say my contract had been terminated for falsifying accounts and I also had missed the date for an appeal.

I contacted the sub postmaster’s federation only to have no support what so ever. In fact the secretary suggested it had been my own fault.

How when I know that no money was ever taken by me. Certain cheques had suddenly doubled; the stock was £800 down, which I could not understand as the stock balanced the night before. Coins we had remmed out had gone missing in transit.. These were the questions I wrote and asked them a number of times and all they were interested in was me paying the money back. They could not show me any proper accounts and I was not paying anything back I know had not been taken by me.

At the time it was coming up to Christmas and it was suggested the P/O could stay open run by another sub postmaster. I agreed as I did not want to let the customers down. I found it all very humiliating in my own business premises. In the New Year we were notified our office was to close as part of the government network change and despite petitions etc. it closed a few months later. I was never compensated for the loss to my business in fact the P/O walked away with £75,000 of my business. Needless to say the business has struggled since and it has had a knock on effect on my personal affairs with on-going debt problems and now the sale of my home to pay my bank loan off.

Two years later I came across the JFSA and was relieved to find out that I was not on my own that similar things had happened to many other people. Their support has helped me considerably to come to terms with what has happened.

I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND ANYONE TO INVEST IN THE PURCHASE OF A POST OFFICE.

Post office Horizon/ Fujitsu systems installed approximately 12 years ago various small problems then gradually increased to larger problems to the extent that balances were running at thousands of pounds short each monthly balance period, my wife could not accept that these were in house problems and routinely rang for help and advice none were forthcoming.

We then had a bank of Ireland ATM installed from there on the problems really escalated, we always reported these figures never trying to falsify accounts to balance, again we asked for help but still got none, at this point we were called in for an interview as the suspense account was showing at £36000 we argued that there had to be a problem with the system as we had heard of other offices having similar problems we were told this was not the case and as my wife was the postmistress she had to put the money in. We re- mortgaged our home and paid a cheque for £15000 with remainder to come out of her salary each month, within a couple of months we had a few more large losses which again we reported and did not try to hide, the auditors arrived and my wife as subpostmistress was asked to resign.

We were told we would be allowed to sell our shop and post office as long as the post office got their money on completion of the sale, the amount owing is in the region of £45000. We have always maintained that there has to be a problem and this money has to be in the system somewhere.

Recently after seeing an item on the news on tv that an MP was pushing to have the post office to agree to have an independent review of their system. It was after this article that I decided to have a look on the Internet and by chance came across a site called justice for postmaster alliance an organisation trying to help postmasters in a similar situation as ourselves, it was by chance that they were having a meeting in Warwickshire on Sunday first of July. We attended this meeting leaving our home in the early hours of the morning, some of the stories I could not believe of the honest hard working individuals one postmistress had been in the job for fifty one years.

November 2009 – alleged offence - theft of £18k from Post Office Ltd (POL)

Sentence - 9 months, suspended for 18 months; 70 hours community service

Circumstances

Having run the village post office for some 5 years, an audit visit (my first ever) “uncovered” a loss of value stock amounting to c£23k. On further investigation, this amount fell to c£18k.

Following a “police style” interview with PO staff, POL prosecuted me for theft and false accounting. Post Office is the only body in this country allowed to bring criminal prosecutions apart from CPS.

I pleaded “not guilty” to both charges.

After receiving the transcript of the interview, my solicitor and barrister advised me that by being unrepresented at the interview (except by a member of the postmasters federation – who was told to remain silent throughout), I had given PO sufficient ammunition to suggest that a jury trial could very well result in a guilty verdict and the certainty of a custodial sentence. After due deliberation I decided to change my plea to “guilty” and suffer the consequences of a criminal record but not a prison sentence.

In order to secure this outcome, I had to find and repay the full sum claimed by POL, they in turn dropped the false accounting charge. The Judge in summing up refused a claim for costs by POL and made his feelings crystal clear as to the nonsense of bringing criminal proceedings against “a man of hitherto exemplary character” in pursuance of an unproven act and full recompense of monies allegedly due.

Subsequent Events

Throughout my case and indeed following its outcome, I received enormous support from friends, villagers and customers who refused to believe that I had made off with any money...in fact the consensus of opinion was that POL were deliberately fabricating a case for closing our branch without the cost of significant recompense to the Postmaster (this event had occurred in the middle of a national closure programme to find 2500 branches to close). Very soon after my sentencing, I was contacted by a fellow ex Postmaster who had experienced the same treatment and further enquiries uncovered a significant number of similar cases up and down the country.

To summarise the current situation, approximately 225 postmasters have suffered my fate to a greater or lesser degree and having formed an alliance, and actions are now underway to try to highlight the shortcomings of the Horizon system and to clear our names and claim recompense for paying POL in order to avoid prison. Some of the more unfortunate people have actually suffered custodial punishment in view of the huge amounts allegedly stolen.

My case is different as it doesn’t relate to problems with Horizon, though I was aware of deficiencies within the system. My case does, however, reflect on a total lack of support and care from Post Office Ltd and shows what could have happened to those other post masters if they hadn't agreed to plead guilty to the charges brought against them.

I ran my office successfully from January 1995 to October 2003. I was not aware of any problems in my post office until, completely out of the blue, one morning in October 2003, I was raided by 2 police officers, 2 representatives of the DWP and 2 Post Office auditors. The auditors found nothing amiss. The DWP inspectors completed a thorough search of the post office and house but found nothing incriminating. Nevertheless I was arrested on suspicion of theft and suspended from the Post Office on no pay, pending further investigation. I was taken to the police station and interviewed under caution by the DWP. My wife was interviewed separately under caution by the DWP. I was accused of fraudulently cashing benefit payments. I was told if I pleaded guilty to the three charges they would drop all other charges. I refused as I was innocent and naively believed that justice would prevail.

At the time this happened my office was being considered for closure and I had been told I would receive nearly £68,000 in compensation. There was strong opposition locally to the closure and a petition had been signed by most of my customers for the post office to remain open and for me to continue as sub post master. At my request on my suspension, a substitute sub post mistress was put in to run the office until its eventual closure in February 2004. On the Regional Manager’s suggestion, she employed my wife on minimum wage to assist her and to run the lottery as she had no experience of this. We had been forced to surrender the keys to the post office, of course. We lived on the premises and it does not bear thinking what would have happened had there been a raid on the premises while the post office was closed!

In October 2004 I was tried at Crown Court by a judge and jury who clearly had no understanding or interest in my case. Even my barrister and solicitor struggled to grasp it! I was found guilty of all charges and six weeks later was given a 12 month prison sentence which was reduced to 6 months. I spent 3 months in prison and was released on 2nd January 2005 on tag for a further 3 months. I was forced to pay nearly £15,000 “proceeds of crime” plus half the legal costs, amounting to a further £5,000. As we didn’t have this money we had to re-mortgage our property. Fortunately my wife had been able to borrow money from family to pay off the original mortgage. She had found full time employment when the post office closed and I subsequently found part time employment, so we were able to make the repayments. We had to borrow more money to convert the former post office to residential use and eventually sold the property in 2007. We “downsized” to our present home and are now, thankfully, debt free.

I retired this year, just before my 70th birthday. My wife at 65 is still working part time. This is not exactly the position we expected to be in when we bought the post office business as an investment to provide for our future retirement.

Post Office Ltd must have known I was under investigation yet did nothing to investigate the case themselves. Had I been aware of problems in my office I would have invested in CCTV equipment which would have proved my innocence. The Post Office could have easily done that, yet they did nothing at all to support me. As for the Federation – what a waste of space!

Problem started when £18810 dispensed cash was entered into the AA stock unit. Rang helpline to confirm that a transfer should be made as opposed to a reversal. Helpline lady said yes to transfer but then admitted she knew nothing about reversals.

As this left some doubt we again phoned the helpline and was told that no you should not transfer but do a reversal- search under payments, not receipts, and then reverse out.. This we did only to find we had a shortage of £13190, rang helpline again and was told we had been given the wrong advice and that a second line call was needed.

Second line rang the following day and said we needed to go to new reversals, PO ATM reverse out and then transfer to ATM, this we did whilst on the phone. This showed a surplus of £5620. Later the variance showe a loss of £18810 in AA but the ATM showed a surplus of £37620.

Rang helpline again and booked another second line call. Second line rang the following day and said that we needed to transfer the minus of £18810 from AA to ATM, again this was done whilst he was on the phone. Variance later showed a surplus of £18810 in the ATM stock unit. Office snapshot still showed a surplus of £18810 when we balanced.

Every entry that was done was as instructed by helpline.

There's room for your story here. Use the LinkButton to tell us about your case.

and there is also room for your story here