Anorexia, bankruptcy, suicide – how the Horizon IT system ruined lives

0:01Paul Kelso:Coming up on the Sky News Daily with me, Niall Paterson, the latest in the Post Office Horizon IT scandal. At least 13 people may have taken their own lives after allegations of theft and fraud based on evidence from Horizon. Evidence which the Post Office already knew could be utterly inaccurate.

0:25Paul Kelso:Hi everyone, I am down at the Oval Cricket Ground in South London today Home to Surrey County cricket of course But also the public inquiry into the post office scandal Currently we are being kept in something of a media holding pen A big conference room just overlooking the ground As we go through copies of the first report Into one of the worst miscarriages of justice ever It officially confirms that the Horizon IT system ruined hundreds of lives, that the post office knew its system could be wrong, but in the words of the inquiry's chair, maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate.

1:01Paul Kelso:We are still making our way through the detail, so let's just hear a little bit from the chairman, Sorin Williams. The picture which has emerged and which is described in my report is profoundly disturbing. Many businesses and homes have been lost. Bankruptcies have occurred. Marriage and families have been wrecked. Postmasters and others suffered the trauma of criminal prosecution, conviction and punishment. Tragically, I heard two of people of whom it is said that they were driven to take their own lives.

1:40Paul Kelso:Let me just explain exactly what's been going on. For the past hour and a half, I and our other colleagues from various news organisations have been sitting with the report itself, going through the details in what's known as a lock-in. We're not allowed to tell anyone of the details outside. It just gives us an opportunity to go through the information, the recommendations in the report before we start doing the journalism. And another of my colleagues who was there, Paul Kelso. Paul, Sir Wynne said this was all about the human impact. Why are we getting this bit of the report today? We're getting this first because Sir Wynne Williams has taken the view, supported I think by this document it's produced, that it is the human impact that counts most from this because so many lives were ruined by the actions of the post office in, we now know, falsely pursuing criminal charges, compensation claims that had no basis in reality and they knew.

2:34It's harrowing, let's call it what it is. It is harrowing. it's also rather difficult for your blood not to boil again. Now, we are impartial, but now reading some accounts, some of which have never been published before. Give us some examples. There is one in particular. There is the devastating account of the daughter of Lee Carstleton. One of the first people to be prosecuted. He's in the ITV drama. The post office spent£300 ,000 bankrupting him on the basis of false evidence. His daughter has told the inquiry, we've not heard this before, her mental health was destroyed and how she got an anorexia diagnosis.

3:17She had to drop out of university and she talks about age 26. She is still struggling to deal with the mental health impacts of her father being accused, the tension that brought into the house. Every one of these accusations has this ripple of human impact that is impossible not to be, as I say, not to be moved by. And no wonder these people have been so angry for so long.

3:42Paul Kelso:Completely. I mean, we hear in the report, 59 people considering suicide, 13 eventually did take their own lives. On top of that, a list of other problems. As you mentioned, we see in the report yet again that hint from the chair that people knew, Fujitsu knew, the post office knew, before these systems were introduced and in real time. It is the very first thing we read in this report. It's very deliberate. Here's the clear words. Prior to rollout, some employees of Fujitsu discovered that Legacy Horizon, that's the first Horizon, was capable of producing data which was false. Despite this, they say the post office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate.

4:30The same then applied to Horizon Online, the second system that followed up. I am satisfied that a number of employees of Fujitsu and the post office knew that this was so. So he wants us to know, more importantly, I suspect, the victims in this scandal to know he's made his mind up. The evidence points to this being a knowing deception with devastating consequences.

4:52Paul Kelso:What I have always struggled with is since the ITV drama, since the massive public attention this story has gotten, we have not seen the compensation schemes kick into top gear in the way in which you would imagine. and that is something clearly identified in this report. Why has there been this dragging of the heels? He does address that and the compensation schemes are extremely complicated. There are 19 recommendations here, many of them about the compensation schemes. There's no legal advice provided for people. There's not even a definition of fair and full compensation. That's the first thing he wants.

5:24His recommendation of a public body to handle these cases in future, I'm thinking of the infected blood inquiry where people are still dying without receiving compensation, despite them already having gone beyond this stage of the inquiry. It's impossible to conclude anything other than there is an institutional inability to get money out of the door to people whose cases could not be more open and shut.

5:50Paul Kelso:Paul, you just take a breather for a second. We're going to head out into the stands so we can have a quick chat with one of those, well, incredibly directly affected by all of this, Janet Skinner. OK, so we've stepped out the media suite now to speak to Janet Skinner, herself a former sub-postmaster. She was drilled back in 2007 for nine months over the alleged sop fall in her case of£59 ,000. Now, she ended up serving three months of that sentence, was later released on a tag. However, she had been advised at the time to plead guilty by her lawyer, and I imagine, Janet, that is something you're thinking about every day.

6:24Paul Kelso:I mean, this instance, this stage of the inquiry is all about the human impact, according to Sir Wynne Williams. I had actually had a meeting with Sir Wynne before the actual inquiry began, and he was then assessing whether he felt it was something he could do. It's hard, I think, for him to put it down as any form of recommendation, because how can you put any recommendation to something that we've already suffered? I suppose the one aspect that has come out today is we have had laid bare the extent of the human impact. 59 people considering suicide, 13 people took their lives. Add to that bankruptcy, anorexia, general depression, reputational damage.

7:09Paul Kelso:What was the effect on you? Reputational damage. I lost my home. I was then, came after me again in 2008 for£11 ,000 compensation. Ended up nearly going back to prison for five years. and 10 days after that I was admitted into hospital and I was paralysed from the neck down and they told me I'd never walk again. Thankfully, I've seen you walking today, although it does come with a bit of effort still. Yeah, I think it's my stability. I'm quite unstable. So people can just knock into me, I just fall over. So there have been for you physical effects very clearly? Massively, yeah. psychological effects as well.

7:57Yeah.

7:57Paul Kelso:How does it feel when you were going through this to know that there were people in your community who thought you were a criminal, who thought you were a thief? I think I'd been in Wetfield Prison a couple of weeks and there was a young girl who got put into prison and she said, I remember her saying to me, oh God, I know who you are. You're that woman from home that nicked all that money. That's what people assumed. I mean, I took the advice of my legal team. I actually later found out in 2020 that I thought I was pleading guilty to signing documents. I didn't realise I was actually signing and committing theft.

8:33It came under the Theft Act, and I never knew that.

8:36Paul Kelso:It is not just the human impact of that process, of the Horizon IT scandal, but it is what has happened subsequently, and that promise from the government, from the post office, from Fujitsu, of a full, fair and prompt redress. That's just not happened, has it? No, God, no. I mean, my conviction was overturned in 2021. and I am still today fighting for compensation. Honestly, it's like a battleground. So you put your claim in, they assess it, and then they send you, like, a page, 14 pages I've recently had of questions that they want answering. 14 pages. And some of it's information I haven't got.

9:17And what they did was, when you get suspended, you get suspended without pay, but you're also told you're not allowed to remove any documentation out of that office because if you do, it's classed as theft. And now they're asking for documentation that we don't have.

9:36Paul Kelso:The inquiry report itself makes it pretty clear that there isn't a very strong suspicion that at times there have been those on the other side of the table from you going slow, dragging their heels in that process. If you're on about redress, absolutely. Absolutely. It's taken me five medical assessment reports for them to finally accept in February of this year that what happened to me physically is the result of stress. It's a never-ending story. It literally is a never-ending story. One of the other recommendations from the inquiry, and I think quite an important one, that family members, those connected to those who were accused of these crimes could seek compensation.

10:17Yeah, it's easy to say that. It's all right saying that on paper. But look at the fight we're going through and we're the ones that have gone through it. And we're no better forward. So you're telling me that now we're going to have to put our family members through that same kind of process. Why would you want to inflict that same amount of pressure and trauma onto your family?

10:38Paul Kelso:Is that how you see this? That actually it would be better for them to avoid the trauma that you've had to go through in this process? Yeah, give them a set amount to each individual family member, is what I would say. Just literally offer them a set amount. Don't go putting the family through any more pressure and stress that they're already going through. What did your family go through? Oh, God, I left till teenage kids when I went to prison. So I know it was basically, my daughter basically looked after my son. I mean, she was 17. He was 14. and then I spent like 17 years walking with my head down and it's a fright and going to school and watch like open evenings for my son when he was still at school thinking are people going to recognise me?

11:27What if I say my name and they know who I am? Walking with my head down you shouldn't have to live your life like that.

11:34Paul Kelso:No you shouldn't. So I wonder is there any aspect of this process that has been cathartic that has been positive for you? Do you want me to be honest? No. None whatsoever. Unless we receive accountability, people start being prosecuted. Scandal after scandal after scandal, that's all you ever hear, but you never ever hear of anybody being prosecuted. And I think that needs to change. It seems an awful long time since people were sat round the telly come Christmas watching Mr Bates versus the post office, and yet we just don't seem to be that much further forward. What do you want to see happen immediately as a results day?

12:09Do you know what? they need to remember that the amount of people that have suffered already and people are dying before they've even been offered any form of redress just that ability to be able to move that part of your life on do you know all I want to do is move house, actually earn a house that belongs to me do you know, not renting off somebody else, and I want to be able to look after my family and we want to be able to move forward, that would help a lot of people but for me, accountability Accountability. It's got to be accountability.

12:44Paul Kelso:And without that accountability, can you see yourself ever moving forward from this? No. No, I can't. Because it's just literally recommendations after recommendations. This inquiry has statutory power. If you go into a court of law and you get told this is what's going to happen, that is what's happened and what is laid bare in front of you, you've got to abide by that. Why shouldn't these reports be the same? Janet, thanks a lot for your time, I'd be so appreciate it That's alright, thank you Okay, so some pretty powerful stuff there from Janet I think you know her views on the utility of this inquiry Let's head back into the media area and see if we can't find Paul Kelso, our correspondent Paul, are public inquiries of this sort fit for purpose?

13:28Paul Kelso:Do they actually achieve what they set out to? This has certainly achieved one element which is an independent voice gathering the evidence and then setting out beyond doubt what has gone on here and given the duration of the lies and the extent of the evasions my goodness they did not want to accept any responsibility well that they can no longer evade that and the human impact can no longer be avoided the key point is how do you turn this into definitive action and perhaps a public body that can oversee compensation when the state screws up let's be frank about what's happened but that's more bureaucrats that's a that's another layer of complexity can it work who knows but the very least the people here deserve is that the state tries and tries in good faith to make them whole for what's happened here because lives have been we said a lot devastated sometimes we overuse it but it's unquestionable that's what's happened here oh thanks very much and that's it for this edition of the daily to find out even more about what's been happening down here at the post office horizon it inquiry at the oval you can just head to the website skynews.com the daily is back again tomorrow