Western Daily Press (Saturday)
‘I want them to hold their hands up – admit they were wrong’
AFORMER West Country subpostmaster who was jailed as part of the Post Office IT scandal has described the profound impact the ordeal has had on her life.
Janine Powell burst into tears when a judge jailed her for 18 months in 2008.
During her prison stint, she was forced to spend up to 23 hours a day in her cell due to staffing shortages. Janine was working at a branch in Tiverton when she was wrongly accused of stealing £74,000.
Her life fell apart as she was sacked, arrested, charged and convicted at a trial in Exeter in 2008.
She maintained her innocence but was sentenced to 18 months in prison. She was one of hundreds of subpostmasters from across the country who were wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 for fraud, theft and false accounting. It has been called “the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice”.
More than 15 years later the TV drama Mr Bates vs Post Office, starring Toby Jones, has received critical acclaim and brought back some of the memories of the scandal.
The mum of three, now aged 52, has praised the four-part series for its accuracy and says she can now hold her head high, knowing others can finally see the truth. She particularly identifies with one of the characters, Jo Hamilton, played by Monica Dolan.
Janine said: “People have said to me how alike mine and Jo’s stories are. It is exactly how it was. We were both advised to plead guilty by our solicitors. I never did but I felt a lot of pressure.”
Janine has given evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry. It has been gathering evidence about the scale of events. The painstaking inquiry has been running for more than two years and is considering whether Post Office Limited has learned the lessons of the scandal.
Janine’s criminal conviction was quashed, along with many others, in 2022.
In her written evidence Janine sets out her own experience.
She got a job as a counter assistant at Cowleymoor Post Office in 2005 and within a few weeks was asked to take over as the sub-postmaster. The job was ideal and she moved to live upstairs with two of her children.
“I was eager to serve the people of my community,” she said. “It was my hometown. I was a sociable and confident person and enjoyed the interaction with the public.”
She was excited about her new role and confident she could make it work. In early 2007 she received a phone call from the area manager and auditor and was asked to go downstairs.
“When I joined them I was asked to hand my keys to them, and I was advised that I was suspended pending investigation into the theft of around £74,000. I am unable to put into words how I felt at that moment in time: confused, dismayed, numb. I felt sure they would realise their mistake,” she said.
It was a forlorn hope. Her contract was terminated by the Post Office and she found herself facing serious criminal charges.
Horizon was a computer accounting system introduced by the publicly owned Post Office so that there could be integrated payment of social security benefits through post office branches. But soon after its introduction it wrongly started to report financial discrepancies at several branches.
Janine said she had noticed problems with Horizon “that made no sense”. She spoke to colleagues about where discrepancies were coming from and reported them to her area manager.
“We corrected the system ourselves to account for the discrepancies and made each other aware of this,” she said.
“But we would refer the issues onto my area manager, who would then refer it onto head office. The area manager corrected the system and we did not have to pay back any of these discrepancies.”
She was always advised not to worry, that it was not her fault. But the attitude of bosses changed when the investigation started. Suddenly she was on her own fighting wrongful accusations. She felt cast adrift, nobody willing to listen to her side of the story. She was devastated, alone and unable to understand where the money had gone.
“It was like they needed someone to blame,” she said. “They chose me and that was it. This act alone made me feel hurt and unheard.”
She was summonsed in 2008 and pleaded not guilty, thinking it was ludicrous anyone would believe she had stolen the money. She had never been in any trouble before but her faith in the justice system was misplaced.
Her barrister advised her to make a deal and plead guilty to get a more lenient sentence. With three children it was a difficult decision but she stuck to her guns, believing the mistake would be spotted.
The press coverage was “embarrassing and degrading” and Janine remembers being stared at by members of the public who had seen her photo in the local newspaper and on TV.
“This made me just want to stay inside and hide,” she said. “I didn’t want to face the world – I didn’t want people staring at me and judging me. I kept questioning myself that if they knew and recognised me what would this mean for my children.”
The judge at Exeter Crown Court said it was a very sad case. Janine recalls her thoughts on hearing the 18-month sentence.
“As soon as I heard this in the courtroom I felt faint and my legs felt like they were going to give way. I could not believe my life had come to this point. I felt in a total haze.”
All she could think about was her children and the devastating impact her imprisonment would have on their lives. The sentence came two days after her daughter’s 10th birthday. The child went to live with a friend in Somerset and was bullied at her new school when the other children found out about her mum’s conviction.
Janine served five months of her sentence in jail and a further three months on licence with an electronic tag. It would be normal for her to be confined in a cell for 23 hours a day due to staffing shortages. She moved prisons on the day her children were supposed to visit.
“I cried,” she said. “It broke me. It was hard enough seeing my children at visitation, but this move made it even harder.”
After her release Janine tried to rebuild her life but the conviction was a millstone. She was reunited with her children but finding a job was difficult. She had to give up on her dream of being a midwife and foster parent due to her criminal record. She also lost a job as a receptionist when they discovered her past.
Eventually she found work with a taxi company but when a passenger recognised her it became too much. She’d had enough and moved her family to live with a friend in Durham, unable to stand the glares and finger-pointing any longer.
“I could never escape my conviction despite the many years that had passed,” she said.
After suffering with depression and anxiety she found a job at a hotel on the Isle of Wight and is now rebuilding her life. Her children know she is not the same person she was before prison. But she said they had always stood by her and their relationship has withstood all the hardship.
Only in recent years has she felt able to talk about events that changed the direction of her life. Giving evidence to the Horizon Inquiry was difficult. At the time she was accused of theft she knew nothing of similar accusations being levelled at other sub-postmasters.
She said: “I didn’t have a clue my case was like anybody else’s. Now it is all out in the open I don’t feel so alone, knowing there were a few hundred like me. Knowing that it wasn’t just me going through it and it happened to others is shocking.”
The inquiry is due to finish hearing evidence later this year. So far there have been more than 128 public hearings, with oral evidence from 190 witnesses, including expert witnesses; lawyers; Post Office employees; ICL and Fujitsu employees; civil servants; ministers; union representatives and many sub-postmasters and their colleagues or families.
No prosecutions have been made against those responsible for the wrongful convictions.
“I think for me I would just like them to take the blame,” says Janine.
“Hold their hands up and say ‘we were wrong’.”
■ Martin Hesp on Saturday: P22
This made me just want to stay inside and hide. I didn’t want to face the world – I didn’t want people staring at me and judging me JANINE POWELL