The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
PO scandal victim lost home
Aformer Post Office worker has told of how she was left homeless with her then young daughter after being wrongfully convicted due to flaws with the computer system.
Lisa Brennan, is among more than 700 subpostmasters and subpostmistresses (SPMS) prosecuted based on information from the Horizon IT system, installed and maintained by Fujitsu between 2000 and 2014.
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.
Ms Brennan, who was a counter clerk at a post office in Huyton, near
Liverpool, was wrongly convicted of the theft of just over £3,000 in 2003 despite pleading not guilty.
Although she avoided jail, she said it was the “end” of her world, leading to financial difficulty and the end of her marriage.
“All I’d ever known from the age of 16 was the Post Office and then just to be told ‘you’re a thief’ is horrible,” she said.
After the conviction, Ms Brennan attempted to take an overdose but said “nobody really cared” or reached out because of her criminal record. She said she drank “a lot” of vodka and wine to “numb” what she had been through.
Describing how she became homeless, Ms Brennan said: “I had to sell the house, I couldn’t afford the mortgage.
“I stayed at my mum’s on the couch and my daughter
Jess just had the spare room – I was sofa surfing.”
She described relying on family members for food, and would often go hungry so her daughter could eat.
Talking about her ordeal, Ms Brennan added: “It’s scandalous, it should never have happened.
“I wasn’t the only one but that’s what I was told: ‘It’s only you, you’re the only one.’ ”
Mother-of-three Janine Powell, 50, a former subpostmistress in Tiverton, Devon, cried during the inquiry as she recounted her ordeal after being accused of stealing around £71,000.
Ms Powell revealed she felt “broken” after being sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2008 as she would have to leave her children aged 10 to 18.
She said she spent around 23 hours a day in
prison because of short staffing.
“It had a big impact. You have to declare obviously that you’ve got a criminal record,” Ms Powell added.
“When you try to explain (to employers) it’s a ‘no’ straight away, so I couldn’t work.”
The inquiry, which is expected to run for the rest
of this year, is looking into whether the Post Office knew about faults in the IT system and will also ask how staff were made to take the blame.