Exposed, ‘catastrophic’ impact of IT failures on Scottish postmasters
Some forced to repay thousands after they were accused of theft
A POST Office IT scandal in which hundreds of people were wrongly accused of stealing from their tills had a ‘catastrophic’ effect on postmasters and their families, an inquiry heard yesterday.
More than 700 sub-postmasters across the UK were accused of theft and false accounting because of flaws in the organisation’s IT system, Horizon.
Last month, Paula Vennells, who ran the Post Office between 2012 and 2019, said she would not comment ahead of her appearance at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, now being held before Sir Wyn Williams.
Yesterday Vinod Sharma, who took over a post office in Balornock, Glasgow, in 1977, said he was forced to pay back more than £28,000 after the system wrongly logged a huge shortfall.
Giving evidence to the inquiry, Mr Sharma said he was given just two days training when the Horizon system was introduced in 1999. The 74-year-old, who retired in 2015, said it took him around a year to get to grips with it and to use the system confidently.
Previously, he had seen occasional shortfalls, which he had made up out of his own pocket.
He said: ‘We were led to believe the system was faultless. I was always told no errors could
‘No evidence where the money could have gone’
be made when using the Horizon system. I experienced shortfalls, sometimes of a few hundred pounds. You just swallowed the pill and made it good and moved on.
‘You could never get [the system] to balance perfectly. The helpline would say to just leave it and hope the system would correct itself.’
But in June 2015, Mr Sharma received a phone call during a month-long holiday to visit family in Arizona. He was told there was a shortfall of £28,845 – and on his return he spent days reviewing CCTV to show that a trusted staff member, known only as Lorraine, could not have taken the money.
He said: ‘It came out of the blue. I immediately cut short my holiday and returned to Glasgow. There was nothing I could do.
‘There was no evidence where the money could have gone. I watched ten days of CCTV footage, and that kind of money did not leave the post office.’
A union representative told Mr Sharma that his only option was to repay the sum or face suspension and punishment.
Mr Sharma said he 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. Within a week of him paying the £28,000, he was audited by the Post Office. It uncovered a further shortfall of £700, which he had to pay on the spot to auditors.
Peter Worsfold, 77, also gave evidence after he had to repay around £37,000 from the period 1997-2002 at his Inverness post office.
Yesterday he told the inquiry: ‘I don’t think Horizon was ever designed to balance, it was always up or down. It would never come out as £0.’
In 2001, he was notified of a £20,000 discrepancy. But he said it took three months before the Post Office flagged up the issue.
In the interim period, he let go two members of staff after becoming paranoid they could be taking money without his knowledge.
He said that he has since apologised profoundly for having to dismiss them, now knowing the Horizon system was to blame.
Mr Worsfold was suspended but a police investigation found no wrongdoing. The Post Office told him to write the amount off in the accounts. It then started recouping the money from his wages.
Mr Worsfold estimates he paid back more than £37,000 in alleged shortfalls. Louise Dar, who ran a post office in Lenzie, near Glasgow, said she felt ‘fobbed off’ after asking for troubleshooting training ahead of opening her branch.
On the first day, an auditor setting up the system noticed a £900 shortfall and accused Mrs Dar of taking it – despite her not having access to the system. Over the course of two-and-a-half years, Mrs Dar, 39, paid around £40,000.
The inquiry continues.