Post Office scandal's deadly toll as tragic true story airs on ITV
ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office has lifted the lid on the disturbing true story behind mysterious financial losses that appeared in village post office tills across the UK.
The opening episode of the four part series, starring Toby Jones, left viewers appalled as they learned the human cost of the staggering technical error in the Post Office's updated account system.
The series recounted the new computer system called Horizon being installed in branches across the country. As a result of errors in the technology numerous postmasters were wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after being accused of fraud, theft and false accounting when their takings did not add up.
It follows the story of Alan Bates, who along with his partner Suzanne Sercombe in 1998, used life savings to buy a Post Office branch in Llandudno, North Wales. But it was not just the couple who were impacted by what happened and we see how the fall out affected scores of families across the UK.
Martin Griffiths died in 2013 at the age of 59 (Liverpool Echo)One former post office worker took his own life after he was wrongly accused of stealing £60,000.
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Martin Griffiths died by suicide in 2013 at the age of 59. Mr Griffiths had worked at the Post Office for 20 yearsa when he was wrongly accused of stealing money from the branch he worked at in Ellesmere Port. The branch's accounting system wrongly displayed a shortfall of £61,000. Mr Griffiths delved into his own savings to make up for the deficit.
His sister, Jayne Caveen, said a “bloody faulty computer system killed my brother”.
Heartbreakingly, Mr Griffiths' story wasn't the only tragic case. Devon postmaster Peter Huxham, 63, died alone in a suspected suicide after he was jailed for eight months following a £16,000 shortfall.
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His family said the ordeal led to the break-up of his 22-year marriage and drove him to alcoholism.
Recording an open conclusion, assistant coroner Stephen Covell said: “It is unfortunately rather an unsatisfactory state of affairs that I cannot give any helpful conclusions as to the precise circumstances of Peter’s death. He lived alone and died some weeks previously, and as a result his body was badly decomposed and it was not possible to give a cause of death. There were no suspicious circumstances.”
In 2020 the Post Office paid out a £57.75m settlement after more than 550 claimants brought group legal action over the Horizon system, which was found to contain software flaws that caused financial shortfalls in the sub-postmasters' branch accounts over a number of years. An investigation later revealed Post Office managers knew IT problems could be to blame for missing money but still prosecuted staff.
A Post Office spokesman said: “We have taken determined action to address past events and we are working to reform the Post Office, to forge an open and transparent relationship with the thousands of current postmasters providing customers with vital services in the UK’s communities. We agreed a comprehensive resolution last year with claimants in group civil litigation, following successful independent mediation. We sincerely apologise to those affected."
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