Victims’ lives struck by post office scandal

Scottish victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal have told a public inquiry their lives were turned upside down as they were forced to pay tens of thousands of pounds of their own money.

The Horizon system, introduced in 1999, saw thousands of users suffer unexplained losses which they say they were expected to “make good” on.

The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry began in Glasgow yesterday and heard from three former postmasters implicated in the scandal.

Peter Worsfold, 77, gave evidence 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 discrepancy – however, he said it took three months for the Post Office to flag up the issue.

As he was unable to locate where the funds had gone, Mr Worsfold was suspended from his post.

After security arrived at his home, Mr Worsfold was given a few hours to pay the 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.”

Vinod Sharma, now 74, first took over a post office in Balornock, Glasgow, in 1977, before retiring in 2015.

Mr Sharma said the accounting became difficult following the switch to the Horizon scheme.

In June 2015, Mr Sharma received a phone call while visiting family in Arizona.

He was told there was a shortfall of £28,845 – and 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 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 having to borrow 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.

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.

ANSWERS: The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry got under way in Glasgow yesterday.