Subpostmaster, 69, who was wrongly accused of fraud breaks down in tears as he tells inquiry he ‘contemplated suicide’ after IT system fault left him facing £17,000 blackhole in accounts
- Over 700 subpostmasters and subpostmistresses were prosecuted up to 2014
- These were based on information from IT system Horizon installed by Post Office
- In 2019, High Court judge ruled the system contained ‘bugs, errors and defects’
- Baljit Sethi and his wife Anjana ‘lost everything’ when a fault affected them
- After being left with a bill of £17,000, Mr Sethi said he ‘contemplated suicide’
A subpostmaster wrongly accused of false accounting has tearfully told an inquiry he ‘contemplated suicide’ after being left with a bill of £17,000 due to flaws within the Post Office system.
Between 2000 and 2014, more than 700 subpostmasters and subpostmistresses (SPMs) faced false claims of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a flaw in the computer system Horizon, installed and maintained by Fujitsu.
Some of these individuals were bankrupted, jailed or driven to suicide following the wrongful accusations.
The inquiry will examine whether the Post Office knew about the faults in the IT system and will also ask how staff took the blame.
In December 2019, a High Court judge ruled Horizon’s system 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.
Baljit Sethi, 69, and his wife Anjana, 67, who have three children together, ‘lost everything’ after a system fault affected them, an inquiry in central London heard on Monday.
The couple said they had the ‘best time’ of their lives running a branch near Romford, in Essex, from 1983, as they were popular in the local community.
Mr Sethi, the first witness to give evidence, told the inquiry: ‘We didn’t take a single penny from the Post Office our entire life.’
Baljit Sethi with his wife Anjana from Essex, is one of the former postmasters wrongly convicted of theft
What was the Horizon computer system and how did it go wrong?
Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of postmasters were sacked or prosecuted after money appeared to go missing from their branch accounts (file image)
Horizon, an IT system developed by the Japanese company Fujitsu, was rolled out by the Post Office from 1999.
The system was used for tasks such as transactions, accounting and stocktaking. However, subpostmasters complained about defects after it reported shortfalls – some of which amounted to thousands of pounds.
Some subpostmasters attempted to plug the gap with their own money, even remortgaging their homes, in an attempt to correct an error.
Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of subpostmasters were sacked or prosecuted due to the glitches. The ex-workers blamed flaws in the IT system, Horizon, but the Post Office denied there was a problem.
In case after case the Post Office bullied postmasters into pleading guilty to crimes they knew they had not committed.
Many others who were not convicted were hounded out of their jobs or forced to pay back thousands of pounds of ‘missing’ money.
The Post Office spent £32million to deny any fault in their IT system, before capitulating.
However, the postmasters and postmistresses said the scandal ruined their lives as they had to cope with the impact of a conviction and imprisonment, some while they had been pregnant or had young children.
Marriages broke down, and courts have heard how some families believe the stress led to health conditions, addiction and premature deaths.
The inquiry heard that in 2001, Mr Sethi took on another branch in Brentwood, Essex, which after one year showed a hole in the accounts of £17,000, which the couple were asked to cover out of their own pocket.
Mr Sethi, who was never charged, told the inquiry he tried to communicate with the head office in Chelmsford, Essex, after noticing a problem with the system.
He broke down in tears as he went on to say: ‘I was the only man who ran the Post Office seven days a week.
‘I used to open it at 8am and shut at 8pm. I was the only Post Office in the country running all seven days.’
Mr Sethi, whose contract was terminated because of the shortfall, said: ‘I knew there was something wrong with the system but no-one wanted to know that.’
Asked about his life afterwards, Mr Sethi said: ‘We lost everything we ever had after 20-25 years and this was all thanks to the Post Office.
‘I was down and out, I contemplated suicide, but I thought no, that’s the easy way out, what about my family and my children?’
Mr Sethi described working late shifts as a security guard on minimum wage to help fund a quality education and lifestyle for his children.
He went on to say: ‘People in our community believed we had been robbing from the Post Office.
‘It all had a bad impact on us psychologically, financially and reputation-wise.’
Dozens of SPMs have had criminal convictions overturned, and an inquiry into the scandal has been launched.
The inquiry, which is expected to run for the rest of this year, will look into whether the Post Office knew about faults in the IT system and will also ask how staff were made to take the blame.
Jason Beer QC, counsel to the inquiry, said the ordeal of those affected could be concluded as ‘the worst miscarriage of justice in recent British legal history’.
He went on to say: ‘Lives were ruined, families were torn apart, families were made homeless and destitute.
‘Reputations were destroyed, not least because the crimes which the men and women were convicted all involved acting dishonestly.
‘People who were important, respected and integral part of the local communities that they served were in some cases shunned.
‘A number of men and women sadly died before the state publicly recognised that they were wrongly convicted.’
Mr Sethi (second from left), pictured alongside his wife Anjana and two of their three children, Adeep (left) and Amit (right) said he contemplated suicide after having his contract with the Post Office terminated
Inquiry chairman Sir Wyn Williams, opening the hearing, said: ‘I cannot emphasise too strongly, what is of course obvious, namely that these hearings would not be taking place at all were it not for the witnesses to who have agreed to give up their valuable time and publicly relive what must be very distressing memories and events.’
After Mr Sethi ended his evidence, former subpostmistress Josephine Hamilton was sworn in to answer questions for the panel before former subpostmaster Noel Thomas was due to give his testimony.
Before the inquiry got underway on Monday, chief executive Nick Read said all victims of the Post Office’s IT scandal will receive compensation offers by the end of the year.
He said that ‘good progress’ was being made with the scheme, which hands payouts to postmasters wrongly convicted in the Horizon fiasco.
Josephine Hamilton arrives at the International Dispute Resolution Centre in London for the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry
Former subpostmaster Noel Thomas was due to give his testimony on day one of the Post Office Horizon IT system enquiry
Around 900 of the 2,300 applicants have been made an offer, the Post Office confirmed.
The Government has been forced to fund the compensation bill as the Post Office’s sole shareholder – with the total expected to run past £1billion.
The inquiry, which got underway today, will also look at whether staff at software firm Fujitsu, which developed the Horizon software to complete tasks such as transactions, accounting and stocktaking, knew the system had flaws when data from the software was used in court to convict sub-postmasters.
A judge will hear evidence on why sub-postmasters and postmistresses were singled out and whether they have been justly compensated.
The son of a postmaster who killed himself after he was wrongly accused of stealing said he ‘100 per cent’ blames the Post Office for his father’s suicide.
Martin Griffiths, who died aged 58, had run his branch in Cheshire for 14 years before shortfalls appeared in 2009.
He was ‘hounded’ over £100,000 of ‘missing’ money while suffering from depression – and his son Matthew, 37, said this is why Mr Griffiths, threw himself in front of a bus in 2013.
He told the BBC’s File on 4: ‘I 100 per cent completely blame the Post Office.’
The public inquiry into the issue will began in London this morning. The Post Office said it is ‘doing all [it] can’ to address the scandal for the victims.
Martin Griffiths (pictured), who died aged 58, had run his branch in Cheshire for 14 years before shortfalls appeared in 2009. He was ‘hounded’ over £100,000 of ‘missing’ money while suffering from depression – and his son Matthew, 37, said this is why Mr Griffiths, threw himself in front of a bus in 2013
Mr Griffiths was one of over 3,000 victims wrongly accused of taking money from their own tills, when a glitch in the computer system, called Horizon, was actually to blame.
Some served jail sentences, others were left financially destitute and at least four are believed to have taken their own lives.
Horizon, which was used by the Post Office for tasks such as transactions, accounting and stocktaking, was first introduced in 1999 and problems started appearing shortly afterwards.
Sub-postmasters complained about bugs in the system after it reported unexplained shortfalls, some of which amounted to many thousands of pounds.
But Post Office bosses ignored the warnings, systematically persecuted its own staff and then spent tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money defending its assertion the Horizon system was ‘robust’.
Before the inquiry got underway on Monday, chief executive Nick Read said all victims of the Post Office’s IT scandal will receive compensation offers by the end of the year. He said that ‘good progress’ was being made with the scheme, which hands payouts to postmasters wrongly convicted in the Horizon fiasco
Following a series of damning judgments bosses finally capitulated in December 2019. The cost to the taxpayer of the scandal in legal fees and compensation is now expected to swell to £1billion.
The Post Office said: ‘We are in no doubt of the human cost of the Horizon scandal and are doing all we can to fairly address this for victims.’
Over 70 postmasters have seen their convictions overturned, and a third of the 2,300 applicants to a compensation scheme have received offers of cash.
This weekend Post Office bosses pledged that all postmasters claiming under its compensation scheme will receive offers by the end of the year.
Around 900 of the 2,300 applicants have been made an offer, the post office confirmed.
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