Former Scots postmistress breaks down in tears as she told how her life was ruined by Post Office IT scandal
A FORMER postmistress broke down as she told how her life was ruined by the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.
Louise Dar, 39, who ran a Post Office in Lenzie, near Glasgow, said she felt “fobbed off” after asking for troubleshooting training ahead of opening her branch.
The mum-of-three was forced to pay around £40,000 over two and a half years as she was blamed for cash shortfalls caused by the wonky Horizon IT system.
Mrs Dar told an inquiry into the scandal that on her very first day in charge, an auditor claimed her system was £977 in the red.
Asked by Jason Beer QC how quickly problems in tallying up emerged, she replied: “Straight away. Almost every day. I thought it would work itself out but then it went out of control.
“Some days, we were having to pay in £20, £30, £100 of our own in the hope it would come to the surface eventually. But money was going into a black hole.”
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Her mother and father helped her try to find out where the money was going in late night checks on the premises in Lenzie’s main street.
She broke down as it emerged her mother had died unexpectedly and she still owes thousands to her ‘wee dad.’
Mrs Dar was suspended by the Post Office, lost the business and associated convenience store and still owes thousands to Revenue and Customs, even selling her car ‘to make ends meet’.
The IT system, introduced in 1999, saw thousands of users suffer unexplained losses which they say they were expected to “make good” on.
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Former postmaster Vinod Sharma, now 74, first took over in Balornock, Glasgow, in 1977 before retiring in 2015.
He said: “We were led to believe the system was faultless. It was quite clear over the years that any shortfall was the responsibility of the sub-postmaster. I had to make it good.
“I was always told no errors could be made when using the Horizon system.”
But in June 2015, Mr Sharma received a phone call while visiting family in Arizona and was told there was a shortfall of £28,845.
On his return he spent days reviewing CCTV to show a trusted staff member could not have taken the money.
A union rep told Mr Sharma that his only option was to repay the significant fee or face suspension and punishment.
Mr Sharma said: “I was in a state of shock,” and described the period as “catastrophic” for his family, before subsequently borrowing money from relatives to pay off the debt.
Mr Sharma retired months later and used more than half of his £52,000 pension to repay the people who had given him a loan.
Peter Worsfold, 77, also gave evidence at the Glasgow hearing after he was forced to repay around £37,000 from the period from 1997 to 2002 at his Inverness Post Office.
Mr Worsfold said Horizon would never balance properly and discrepancies occurred almost daily.
In 2001, he was notified of a £20,000 gap - however, he said it took three months before the Post Office flagged up the issue.
As he was unable to locate where the funds had gone, Mr Worsfold was suspended.
He described two security officers arriving at his house who said they had the same rights as police officers.
Mr Worsfold was given a few hours to pay the outstanding balance or face charges of false accounting, theft and fraud.
He said: “I was very worried and devastated by it. They told me if I signed a statement admitting to false accounting and if I paid the shortfall then the other charges would be dropped.”
In a panic, he signed the document without being given access to a lawyer and scrambled to come up with the cash.
He added: “After 22 years we continue to struggle due to paying back the losses incurred through the failure of the Post Office and the accounting system Horizon.”
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More than 700 sub-postmasters and mistresses in the UK were accused of theft and false accounting because of flaws in the organisation’s IT system.
Some ended up in prison while others lost their jobs.
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The scandal has been described as “the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history”.
The inquiry, overseen by Sir Wyn Williams, continues.
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