One was a young, dad-to-be, the other, a well-respected mum and wife. A third was a postman turned sub-postmaster who was also a local councillor.
All ran post offices in Wales and all had their lives destroyed when the Post Office prosecuted them saying they had stolen thousands of pounds.
Damian Owen was jailed for eight months, he missed Christmas with his family, his career was destroyed and he had to spend 10 years building it back up. Margery Lorraine Williams had to complete unpaid work. Her health has been impacted, forever, she lost her home, her conviction meant she lost her second job. Her daughter was bullied and turned to self-harm. After his sentence, Noel Thomas was sent to a Category B prison in Liverpool. When he arrived, he had to shower in front of a prison warden and was only allowed out of his cell for a few minutes each day. His letters to his family, were written in Welsh, but weren't sent because guards couldn't translate them.
Their convictions were all overturned. In the last two weeks, all have given evidence to an independent public statutory inquiry set up to look at the implementation and failings of the Horizon IT system at the Post Office over its lifetime. The inquiry's QC said people wrongly prosecuted and endured having their “lives ruined” in “the worst miscarriage of justice in recent British legal history”. The Horizon accounting system was introduced by the Post Office in 2000 with problems with the system were first reported that year, with errors causing shortfalls in individual accounts. By 2009, Computer Weekly began highlighting the issue.
Between 2000 and 2014, the Post Office prosecuted 736 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses, an average of one a week. Some were sent to prison, financially ruined or were shunned. Some of the victims have died before the scandal is fully resolved. An estimated 706 prosecutions may have been based on evidence from the faulty computer system. So far 72 postmasters have had their criminal convictions overturned with other appeals pending.
Damian Owen was branch manager of Glanadda sub Post Office on Caernarfon Road in Bangor when officials were sent in to check cash and stock after the Horizon computer system was introduced, they found discrepancies totalling £24,867.
Mr Owen was jailed for eight months and during that time he lost "an awful lot of weight, about four stone in 10 weeks" and after his release he had to work from the "bottom of the rung" jobs because of his criminal record. He says his career has suffered for 10 years, he is no longer on speaking terms with his brother and his daughter, now 11, only found last summer she has an uncle and cousins. His life was, he said, "destroyed" when his trial made headlines.
Speaking to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry in London, Mr Owen said his mother had run a post office and he said he became a branch manager in the store. He said he wouldn't repeat the words he used when he was told by an auditor of the £25,000 shortfall. He said he was "annoyed" because the new system had been installed, and checked, two weeks before that. "Someone had been out and checked everything and I was there, pretty much, a couple of pennies or a pound either side. I knew it was all there because I'd spent hours there with fella counting everything, all the stock, all the cash, absolutely everything. It was all there, all ticked off and all balanced brilliantly."
Mr Owen explained the stock and cash was checked the night before the new system was turned on. A second count was carried out which matched up, and it seemed "fine".
Then, the audit was within two weeks and he said he told the auditor they had a small, quiet branch, and that amount of money was not ever held there. "The most money I had in the branch there was about £13,000. For him to tell me I was £25,000 down...I told him to check it again."
He knew of issues with Horizon via the Computer Weekly articles. Mr Owen was interviewed at a police station in 2011. At the time his partner was pregnant, and he worked in the post office, a community centre and some pub work. He was woken by banging on the day at 7.30am and the police and a member of security staff. "They came into my house, did a thorough search. There was an attic, and that was the only place they didn't search".
At the same time they were searching his mother's house, which was next door, because - he later found out - there had been similar issues there. They were taken to Caernarfon police station together. He was charged and had to appear at Caernarfon Magistrates' court up to three times and the post office did not attend.
He denied the allegations was then sent to crown court for trial. He said until the second day of his trial no-one knew about the case, but said when he went into his parent's shop on that day, he saw his face on the front page of the Daily Post. He said he felt "destroyed" seeing the headlines, before that he had been in the paper for "positive things" like rugby or running. "But not from then on".
He was convicted of theft and said he was "prepared for it" but said it was "because my original barrister from the first day I met him he said 'there's no hope, just plead guilty and get it over with quickly' and take four or five years on the chin'."
He was jailed for eight months on December 23 and jailed in Altcourse Prison in Liverpool, missing Christmas with his family.
Asked what the experience was like, he said. "It's not the kind of place I want to be. It's what you make of it."
He said he was in prison for 10 weeks and in that period last four to four and a half stone. "It didn't sit well with me. I slept off and on, I just tried to keep myself busy. I did a few courses...I did what I could to pass the time as quickly as I could".
After his conviction, Mr Owen needed help with his mental health and was given a diagnosis which has led to continued therapy but he said the pandemic had made that worse as therapy had been carried out over Zoom.
He said job prospects are looking up since his conviction was overturned last April but the "last 10 years have been the most menial, bottom of the rung jobs because who is going to employ someone with a criminal record for theft?" It has caused issues with his family, and he has not spoken to his brother since. His daughter, who has just turned 11, only found out he had a brother and she had cousins last summer.
He said his daughter doesn't know his father went to prison. "The part of the story I told her is that I worked for the Post Office. It didn't end well, and I've come here today. That's something I'll try put off for a couple of years if I can."
He no longer lives in Wales, says "to his face" the community were fine but it's "that little village thing". "When I go back now, I get 'you were right after all'. What gets said in small village life, everyone talks about everyone anyway, but there's a reason to talk about you".
He said since his conviction has been quashed, he's had medical issues which have kept him at home anyway.
Asked what he wants from the Post Office, Mr Owen held a single page letter from Tim Parker, who recently left the organisation, which he described as "the most feeble apology I've ever received for anything in my life".
The letter ends by telling him to contact the author if he has anything he wants to discuss but there are no contact details on the letter.
"They will not do anything to help in any way, they don't want to assist in any way. I would like a proper apology and I won't beat about the bush, I want a decent amount of money out of them.
"I spent 10 years doing menial jobs which, I'm an educated person are massively beneath me. I can't spend the rest of my life doing that and I can't bring back those 10 years. I want some decent money, a decent apology and I want there to be convictions not only for the people who have perpetuated the whole conspiracy inside the Post Office, you know everyone from the top down that knew and was pushing the charges. I want charges against not only the people in the court case who came to give 'evidence' who have lied under oath, I want them to receive a perjury charge.
"I do feel - addressing the media - I want to be given a proper thorough account of what's gone on. It seems media outlets have been too afraid to put anything out there. Is this not the largest miscarriage of justice in British legal history? And there's a page every day or two, a week or two, every month. I think we deserve better".
Margery Lorraine Williams, who now lives on Anglesey also gave evidence. She was a sub-post mistress from April 2009 in a "very quiet post office" in Llanddaniel Fab near Llangefni, a job she "loved". She said she had five days of training on Horizon when it was installed in 2010. When she had shortfalls, she called a helpline, explaining there were electrical faults causing issues with the system which could be offline for up to half a day at a time.
As it was a rented property, she was told it was not their problem.
In February 2011, she saw a shortfall of between £2,000 and £3,000. She decided not to call the helpline because she thought "that amount, it must be there". By March 2011, it had doubled. "The worst thing I did was not ask for help. I felt stupid. I thought it must be me."
She had no idea what was going wrong, she said.
Auditors arrived in June 2011 and she told them "I think there is a problem". They told her there was a missing £14,000 and she said she didn't know where it was. "They took the keys off me and suspended me there and then".
On June 27, she met with investigators in Rhyl and was questioned and was told cash and stock were both missing and she knew that couldn't be right as the branch was so small. By this time, problems with Horizon had emerged in press. "I said it must be a problem with the computer system," she told the inquiry. She was told she was "the only one. It's never happened before".
Her car was searched, and then followed her home to search there. "They came to look through my house but never moved from the living room. They kept telling me not to worry and it would all be sorted".
Her contract with the Post Office was terminated in July. She kept the shop going and called and begged the Post Office to get someone else in to keep it running because local pensioners depended on it.
She appeared at Holyhead, Caernarfon and Mold courts and agreed a plea bargain. She said she had initially pleaded not guilty she was told by the judge to rethink that, she was told if she pleaded guilty to false accounting and fraud the theft charges would be dropped which would "hopefully" avoid prison.
Through tears, she said she "didn't want to go to jail" and said her friend Noel [another post master] had been to prison and she "didn't want to leave her daughter". "I thought I'd be coming home hopefully because I knew I hadn't taken the money."
On May 3, 2012, she was sentenced and said she didn't remember a large amount of the sentencing hearing. Her husband told her the judge asked "is this the Horizon system again?" She had feared prison, and had prepared for prison in a packed bag and had a locket with her 10-year-old daughter's picture in her pocket. She received a 52 week prison term, suspended for 18 months with 200 hours of unpaid work. "I was humiliated because they were trying to teach me how to budget and it just felt awful".
She was told she wouldn't be able to work in a charity shop due to her offence, however she was able to work on a local farm which works with disabled people.
Her conviction and sentence were overturned in April 2021. She had to repay £14,000 to the Post Office. She wasn't allowed to be on the mortgage for her home, and her husband had to take it over. It meant their mortgage payments quadrupled. "My husband had to work all the hours, taking overtime because he was worried we'd lose the house".
She was suspended from her job as a warden at an suite of homes for older people. and while she was allowed to keep it, some residents said they weren't happy she had a criminal record and she was sacked. They also then lost their home, because she lived on site. "It was like a little village for us, my daughter had grown up there."
She managed to get a job as a driver for meals on wheels and worked 40 hours across seven days a week. The charity she worked for also took her on as a support worker.
Asked the impact on her physical health, she now has Type 2 diabetes and scarring alopecia, which means when her hair goes, it won't return. She is a recluse and doesn't like going out and no longer trusts "anybody" she says.
Friends have kept away, she said. Her daughter was bullied in school and self-harmed as a result, she said through tears. Her husband was diagnosed with cancer and is still receiving treatment.
She has received an interim compensation period but says she is scared to use it because there is a warning they will have to give some of it back. "We've had to struggle financially and we don't want to touch it".
She said it is difficult to answer the question about what she wants from the Post Office. "Prison would be an easy life for them. They'd come out and still have their money. I want them to feel the way I felt and the way we suffered financially. I want somebody to be accountable because it's gone on for so long. Someone has to be accountable for this".
Noel Thomas has shared his story before. In 1981, he bought Gaewen Post Office and also worked as postman. From 1993, he was sub-postmaster of the branch. He received a day-and-a-half's training on the new system but noticed shortfalls and deficiencies. He called the helpline 13 times but then stopped as they couldn't help. He kept paying the shortfalls but worried about how he would balance the books. In 2003, there was a £6,000 shortfall, when he raised it, the Post Office wiped off £3,000 of it he plugged the rest with his salary and by taking out a loan.
When his branch was audited, the shortfall was £50,000. He was asked to attend Holyhead police station where he was interviewed and "treated like a serious criminal".
He was suspended 11 days later and investigated for a year, he was then charged with theft and his case was eventually heard at the crown court. A councillor, he provided 100 letters of support from the community, from friends, ex-colleagues and people in his village.
Mr Thomas describes the sentencing as "a living nightmare". He was jailed for nine months and says hearing the judge tell guards to "take him down" was the "lowest day of my life".
He was sent to Walton Prison in Liverpool. Breaking down in the inquiry he said the first week in prison was "hell".
"I was taken to Wrexham first and then Walton. I was unfortunate, I was on the wrong side of the van. I was supposed to go to Altcourse but there was no room. In Walton, I had the indignity of having to have a shower in front of a prison warden. I was taken to a cell. I was there for eight days and was only allowed out for his food."
Breaking down in tears, Mr Thomas, said: "I got 15 minutes at about dinner time on the landing, half an hour in the evening maybe, and that's how it was for eight days." He couldn't call his family due to staffing issues, he was told. "What hurt me at the time, I wrote two or three Welsh letters because at the time they didn't have any staff who could translate what I had written."
He was then transferred to Kirkham in Lancashire, an open prison. "It wasn't a place you wanted to be but I settled in and I had a job in the greenhouses."
He spent his 60th birthday in prison and was released on January 19, 2007. He was tagged on his release and was subject to a curfew between 7pm and 7am. "Having lost everything, I went to live with my daughter," he said.
The tag routinely lost signal so the home was regularly visited.
He sold his home to clear debts but went bankrupt. He said it took two years for his wife to get her pensions back. He lost his salary, private pension and councillor allowance, through the compensation hearings. His post office pension, accrued over 42 years, was also under threat and the prosecution attempted to take that money, but the judge intervened.
He became a Yodel driver and worked in a garden centre "to make ends meet". He received £14,000 compensation, £3,000 was described as compensation for his prison sentence. Mr Thomas said he couldn't sleep in his home with door closed and said a door slamming caused him agitation. He has been diagnosed with adjustment disorder.
"I was a pillar of the community. Not just for Post Office work, people would come to you for advice. They had confidence in you and after the conviction, living in the small community and having been a postman I travelled from one end of the island to the other. In my time I delivered to about 20 different rounds, you knew people and when you went to a town centre in Llangefni, I had someone shout 'shut the doors there are thieves about'."
Mr Thomas said he wants justice and wants to know "who knew". He asked why the scandal wasn't picked up and why it was allowed to "drag on".
A report by the Commons' business committee, released today (February 17) said that the government should "urgently ensure" the 555 litigants in a group action are "fully compensated".
It also found there are 576 convicted sub-postmasters who are yet to come forward. The report says: "Despite the efforts that the Post Office Ltd has made to contact sub-postmasters who were subject to ‘unsafe’ Horizon convictions, so few have approached them to begin the process of overturning them. The report recommends the Government set up an independent body as a trusted first point of contact for those wrongly convicted because of Horizon, in particular for the 576 convicted sub-postmasters who have not yet come forward."
It raises concerns about the time taken to make settlements to sub-postmasters who have had their convictions overturned and how slow payments being made through the Historical Shortfall Scheme are. "There is a lack of support and engagement with sub-postmasters, questions concerning the independence of the scheme, and fears compensation claims are too low and risk leaving Horizon victims without fair compensation."
Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee Darren Jones said: "It is clearly entirely unacceptable that the group of 555 victims who first brought this scandal successfully to court are being left in a worse position than those who are being compensated thanks to their action. There is no valid reason to exclude the 555 from being fully compensated and the Chancellor must come forward with the required funding now.
"We have published this interim report on compensation because of the urgency to get this right now. However, when Sir Wyn Williams concludes his statutory inquiry, we will return to our full Parliamentary inquiry regarding corporate governance issues at the Post Office and oversight of Post Office decisions by the Business Department and UK Government Investments."
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