Some have waited years, some decades, all of them united in their desperate search for justice.
On Wednesday, post office operators hit by the Horizon IT scandal reacted with joy – and a degree of caution, mixed with frustration – as the government announced a blanket acquittal for the hundreds wrongly accused.
Chris Head, a former post office operator, said the decision was “fabulous news” but added: “Why has it taken an outrage from the public, [so] that the government had no choice but to act? This story has been out there for 20 years. We could have had this dealt with well before now.”
Lee Castleton, who was left bankrupt after a two-year legal battle with the Post Office, told the BBC the £75,000 compensation payment also announced by the government was “much appreciated … but I would just like to get to the end of this, really”.
Tim Brentnall, who ran a Post Office in Pembrokeshire until an alleged £22,000 shortfall was discovered at his branch, was given an 18-month suspended sentence and ordered to do 200 hours of community service.
He was eventually cleared in 2021. He said he hoped “words [would] translate into actions now”.
“This is what we’ve been calling for, the quashing of all convictions – the government to legislate for it, to move it on,” he said. “It has been two and a half years since my conviction was quashed and nothing has really happened for me in that two and a half years.”
The announcement from Rishi Sunak came amid a wave of increased public outrage, triggered in part by an ITV dramatisation about the miscarriage of justice, Mr Bates vs the Post Office.
The series tells the stories of some of those who were wrongly convicted or accused of offences such as fraud, theft and false accounting because of a faulty IT system called Horizon.
About 700 post office operators were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015, with some going to prison.
Alan Bates, the man who became the title character of the ITV drama and who ran a post office in the seaside town of Llandudno, north Wales, told the BBC that more work was needed to ensure those affected by the scandal received adequate compensation.
The government has offered £75,000 upfront, but Bates said those with claims higher than that amount also needed their cases addressed. “They’ve lost their houses, their businesses, their earning capacity,” he said.
The 68-year-old welcomed the government’s blanket acquittal plan, but added: “The devil is in the detail, and we’ve yet to see that. We’re still going to have to keep pushing the issue forward.”
Legal representatives of post office operators also warned the government against giving “false hope”.
Neil Hudgell, of Hudgell Solicitors, which represents a number of post office operators, said: “We very much welcome the government’s pledge to exonerate and compensate all the innocent victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal.
“Whilst some of the pledges appear hugely positive, the finer detail of how this will be achieved is key.
“Having supported subpostmasters for the past three and a half years, we have seen how this scandal has impacted on each and every victim, and their wider families, in different ways, and how it continues to impact on them today.
“We must be careful not to give them false hope from political promises, only for them to be let down again.”
James Hartley, the lawyer who represented the so-called “555” operators in their first legal action against the Post Office, said the compensation announcement was “a sensible step forward”.
Hartley said it would also give post office operators the option to decide “whether or not to accept that payment as fair compensation”.
“Our focus remains on driving forward all the compensation claims as quickly as possible,” he added.
