Postmistress tells of her darkest day
KIDS SAVED SHARON’S LIFE
A FORMER sub-postmistress has recounted the harrowing moment she contemplated taking her own life, with only the thought of her children pulling her back from the edge amidst the turmoil of the Horizon IT scandal.
Sharon Brown, who was wrongly accused of embezzling £36,000 from her Post Office branch in Pennywell, Sunderland, admitted to nearly making a fatal decision, saying: “If I hadn’t seen the pictures of the bairns, I wouldn’t be sitting with you now..”
As the inquiry into the impact of the scandal proceeds, Sharon, aged 63, opened up about her brush with death.
“I came close to taking my own life, which is something I never thought I’d ever say,” she said.
“It was somewhere around 2013 or 2014, the exact dates of things have been wiped out by the stress of everything. I just couldn’t sleep so I was up and things as were running around my head. It occurred to me that if I took my own life all the worries would go away.
“But when my eyes fell on a picture of my boys and in that moment I changed my mind. I just thought ‘how can I think about leaving them behind? ‘I couldn’t do it. I’m so glad those pictures were standing around our conservatory, it brought me to my senses.”
Her sons Adam,
34, and Callum, 32, along with husband Kevin, 63, only found out years later how close Sharon had come to ending her life.
She said: “Now I’m lucky enough to be a grandmother. If I’d gone through with it I would not have known how great that is.”
Sharon and her husband took over the business in 2006 and when money started disappearing, like many others embroiled in the Horizon scandal, Sharon believed she was at fault. She said: “I didn’t even consider that it was the computer. It didn’t enter my head.”
Sharon was suspended in 2012, and although she was never prosecuted, the couple are now in debt after using their savings to cover the shortfalls.
Her husband Kevin believes those responsible for the scandal should face jail. He said: “We did everything we could to pay back the money they said we owed, we borrowed off family and took a large loan. For us this is still very real.” Alan Bates, pictured below, an ex-subpostmaster whose battle for justice was dramatised on TV, testified last week at the inquiry into the scandal.
Bates, who spearheaded the High Court action taken by 555 sub-postmasters, insists that police should look into prosecuting those at fault and that bonuses received by executives ought to be reclaimed.
He told the BBC: “People have got to be held accountable.”