Former Post Office manager Kamran Ashraf, 46, and his former sub-postmistress wife Siema Kamran, 48, bought the Hampstead Heath Post Office between 2001 and 2003. They felt forced to plead guilty to theft when £25,000 went missing from their Post Office, despite being innocent, and he was sentenced to nine months in jail in 2004. The father-of-three spent 10 weeks behind bars and eventually had his conviction overturned in 2020, receiving more than £200,000 in compensation so far. He now works for the Department for Work and Pensions and has been diagnosed with severe PTSD. The couple are still yet to receive full compensation for the mental toll, his time in prison and other losses.
There's a memory I often think back to, before this whole Post Office nightmare started. It was 2001 and my wife Siema and I were in our twenties with two young children and had just bought the local Post Office on South End Road in Hampstead. We had everything we wanted — kids, a business of our own — and it felt like everything would continue to go according to plan, as long as we were honest people and worked hard. We were in bed one night and and said 'I really hope this bubble doesn't burst'.
We must have jinxed it that night, because boy did that bubble burst. Less than two years after that comment, everything started to go wrong when we were told we'd somehow racked up a shortfall of £25,000 at our Post Office. Like so many other sub-postmasters and postmistresses across the country, the 20 years since have been a hellish rollercoaster of being separated while I was sent to jail, losing our family home and having to beg our parents for enough food to feed our children, as you'll probably be aware of if you've watched ITV's powerful new drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which tells the story of others who went through similar nightmares to us.
We watched the four-part drama from our home in Winchmore Hill on the night it was televised last week. We're on a big WhatsApp group with 40 or so of the other victims these days — we've become one big family — and everyone was feeling more or less the same in the build-up to the show: looking forward to it, but also dreading it in equal measure, because there's so much emotion and suffering behind these stories. We were worried it would be triggering to see our lives played out on screen again, and that the producers might not fully get our message across to the many members of the public who at this point weren't aware of exactly what went on.
Thankfully, we've been pleasantly surprised both by the production and the huge public and political reaction since. Finally — after years spent living in shame and secret — we finally feel ready and emboldened to share our story in a newspaper for the first time.
Our particular story starts in 2001. We were three years into married life and both graduated and in our early twenties. Siema had a business and marketing degree and I'd spent a bit of time working for Siema's dad, managing his chicken shop. But after we got married we decided we wanted to set up our own business so we could provide a comfortable life for our kids. We originally thought of buying a chicken shop but then Siema's dad said he knew someone who was selling the Post Office in Hampstead Heath.
It was an established business, we knew and liked the area — it had a hospital, a park, lots of schools — and we liked the idea of being part of the local community and serving the elderly. Working in the Post Office was a completely new thing for us but we felt we were in good hands. We understood how franchises worked and The Post Office felt like a safe option; one that was owned by the government, with a guaranteed income, so it sounded like a really appealing option. We had some anxieties, of course, but we were really excited and confident we'd have a lot of help and support along the way.
The training wasn't brilliant from the off; very minimal. Siema had just found out she was pregnant with our second child and was having a difficult pregnancy, and I didn't feel comfortable I could run the Post Office without any support, especially as it was November and the busiest time of year. So we decided to keep the previous sub-postmistress for a few months while we settled in.
My sub-postmistress and I quickly started experiencing shortfalls when balancing the books. At first it was £40 here, £50 there. I asked the sub-postmistress if this was normal and she said it could happen every now and again; that we'd receive an error notice in four to six weeks if we'd made a mistake. But the shortfalls continued and I became more and more concerned as I increasingly had to start taking money from the retail side of the business to fill the gaps. The helpline would tell me the same as my sub-postmistress; that we'd probably just made a mistake and that we'd receive an error notice in four to six weeks.
After years spent living in shame and secret, we finally feel ready and emboldened to share our story in a newspaper for the first time
Our sub-postmistress retired after a few months, as planned, and the shortfalls continued — at which point I started suspecting the people working for me in the Post Office, as well as myself. I started to doubt myself, assumed I hadn't got to grips with things, and would dread Wednesdays, the day we'd do the balancing exercise every week. I'd stay at the shop late into the night just trying to balance the accounts.
Siema says she quickly noticed a change in me. I was stressed all the time and would cut people off because I was so focused on trying to sort everything out. We started having problems. She felt like I wasn't physically or mentally there while she was trying to raise our two young children.
I started to think I was going mad. No one could explain why these issues were happening; not the helpline, not the retail line manager. I was told no one else was having these issues and felt completely isolated, because I was too new to know anyone else in the Post Office network. I hadn't been to any networking events, didn't have any social support available. I felt isolated and cornered.
I began taking more and more money from the retail side to make up the shortfalls in the system, which meant I couldn't afford to buy new stock. We used up all our savings and started having to borrow money from family and friends, so my stress levels were through the roof. I was working seven days a week and felt this huge responsibility on my shoulders while Siema was looking after the children. It felt like we were stuck in this rut, just trying to survive into the next week.
After months and months, we decided to cut our losses and sell up and move away to do something completely different. We had no money left and couldn't keep putting our own money in. Before we could sell, an auditor came in to do a final audit. To our horror, the auditor discovered a £25,000 shortfall. We were in complete shock, thought they had to be kidding. It didn't make sense; we'd been putting so much money in. But we still assumed someone from the Post Office would come in and identify the problem and sort it out.
That never happened. What did happen was we were blocked from entering the Post Office and investigators came and searched our house from top to bottom that same day; searched our beds, searched our paperwork. They seemed confused, said to us 'you're hardly living the life of Riley'. They couldn't find any evidence of theft and I knew we had nothing to hide so naively thought that everything would be OK. Even when they suggested we get a solicitor, we were confused because we hadn't done anything wrong, but put our trust in them because we thought they were there to safeguard us.
We now know we were wrong to put our trust in the Post Office. Our solicitor told us that if we pleaded guilty we would avoid a custodial sentence so we just had to decide which of us was going to plead guilty. She assured us it would only be a slap on the wrist; that it wasn't that big an amount of money compared to other cases she was aware of, at which point the penny should have dropped for us. And she suggested that Siema took the blame, because I was the main breadwinner.
I said there was no way I would let Siema take the blame; that if anyone does it should be me because I was the one who was working there. I was doubting myself, my ability to run a business, my ability to count. I’d lost my confidence completely at this point.
When the hearing came around it was February 2004 and even then my solicitor was assuring me I'd only get a slap on the wrist; that the maximum I would get would be community service. That didn't make sense to me because I'd done nothing wrong, but I went along with it. My father-in-law and I went to the hearing at Kingston Crown Court while Siema looked after the children. She was expecting me to be back in a few hours.
I remember my legs turning to jelly as the judge handed me a nine month custodial sentence... It felt like a horror film
The next thing I remember is my legs turning to jelly as the judge handed me a nine month custodial sentence. It felt like I was in a horror film. I was taken down to a cell, debriefed by a barrister who told me the judge had decided to make an example out of me, and was put into cell within a prison van and driven to Wandsworth Prison. All I could think was: 'this cannot be happening. I haven't done anything wrong'. It almost felt like I'd died. All of a sudden I was disconnected from everything and everyone. I could look outside of the van but no one could look inside. I felt completely isolated.
I spent the next few days in a cell with a man who had serious mental health issues. He'd stay up all night talking to the wall, often aggressively, so much so that I started fearing for my safety. He'd keep me up all night and snatch the pen off me while I was writing letters to Siema. Eventually I asked to be moved to a different cell and ended up sharing with a man who was in for racially-aggravated assault. As an Asian man, I was terrified.
By this point I was having migraines and panic attacks, pacing up and down the cell. They were the longest days of my life. I thought I must have done something terribly wrong at some point in my life to go through all this. Thank goodness Siema believed I was innocent, helped by the fact that I'd worked for her father and he'd agreed we could marry because I was honest and hard-working. Other sub-postmasters weren't so lucky.
I spent three weeks in the worst wing of Wandsworth Prison, a Category B prison, before eventually being transferred to HMP Ford near Brighton. Siemra came to visit once a week and says I didn't look myself. I'd lost a lot of weight and wasn't sleeping. I was just as concerned about her as she was of me. She'd been left to pick up the pieces of the whole Post Office saga, on top of her own health issues and childcare. While I was behind bars, the landlord ended up changing the locks to our Post Office so we couldn't get in. We'd paid £157,000 into the business when we'd bought it — you could buy a three-bedroom house for that in 2001 — and half of that was in cash. It didn't make sense that we'd been accused of stealing. We'd have had to be stealing from ourselves.
After 10 weeks in prison, I was released with a tag and a 7pm to 7am curfew. But the nightmare worsened, if anything, because I suddenly had to start trying to save whatever I could save. After months of getting legal advice and pleading with the bank, our house was repossessed and if we hadn't had the support of family, we'd have been left homeless. We had to borrow from Siema's dad and ask him to be our guarantor to even rent a house, and we didn't even have money for food. There'd be times we'd order a takeaway and Siema's dad would have to pop round to give us cash. Without his help we wouldn't have survived.
As a man and a father, it was uncomfortable and embarrassing. I was applying for jobs but having a criminal record made it impossible. I offered to work for Siema's dad in the meantime in a bid to keep busy and sane and pay him back, and we downsized to a two-bedroom flat. We had to sell the car, the kids had to change schools a couple of times, leaving all their friends behind in the process.
Between 2004 when I was released, and 2015 when the first Panorama investigation into the Post Office scandal came out, life was hard but we made a very conscious effort to put the whole Post Office thing into the past. We decided not to bring it up; that we had to move on and do the best we could.
Siema's dad ended up having to sell his company during the 2008 recession so I was suddenly made redundant and for the first time in my life I had to sign on for benefits. I remember going to the job centre and feeling judged. People make all kinds of assumptions when you have a criminal record. Who can blame them? I applied for hundreds of jobs but the recession coupled with my conviction made it near-on impossible.
Eventually I heard about a position at the Department for Work and Pensions, the only place recruiting at the time. Various checks failed because of my conviction and I ended up having to go for a much lower grade of job than I'd originally applied for, but I eventually managed to get a job, working my way up through the rankings over the years since.
I'm a completely different person compared to who I was before we bought the Post Office... our relationship has reached breaking point many times
Finding a job was just one of so many battles we've had to face in the 15 or so years since. Mine and Siema's relationship has reached breaking point many times thanks to the financial stresses, and I'm a completely different person compared to who I was before we bought the Post Office. I've always been private so I didn't tell my GP or therapist about my conviction for years — I was too ashamed — and I've developed very strong trust and abandonment issues that not only affect my professional life but my social interactions, too. I've not befriended anyone in the last 20 years and I hardly keep in touch with anyone from before my conviction, either. I live a very lonely and boring life. I go to work, I come home, I don't do social things because I have too much anxiety. The only other thing I do is go to the gym because it keeps me mentally sane.
The Post Office came back into our lives and conversations in 2015, when Panorama published an investigation into the Post Office Horizon IT system and complaints by 150 or so sub-postmasters. It was both a blessing because we felt seen, and a curse because we've had to start living the Post Office nightmare again. We've been living it day-in, day-out since then, in one way or another.
We eventually told the kids the truth about me going to prison that same year, in 2015, when our eldest son Usayd was 16. He and his younger sister Isra and brother Umays were so young when the whole thing started we didn't tell them much; as far as they were concerned, dad had been away for work, not in prison. But it reached a point where certain friends or family members were saying things to them, so we had to say something. Our eldest said he had felt like something wasn't right when he was young. He'd only clocked the prison thing when watching a jail scene in Eastenders, and realised his dad had worn the same uniform. He said a few friends had said things about it. We feel so bad as parents to think he kept all that to himself for all those years.
After the Panorama documentary, we contacted Alan Bates, another postmaster who was campaigning for workers who'd been wrongfully accused. We attended a meeting and were astounded to meet people of all ages, locations and ethnicities who'd been through similar situations to us. We started looking into litigation and my conviction was eventually overturned in 2020. I was one of the first six cases to be overturned and felt delighted because I finally felt I can't be judged anymore. Before then I used to think that people still probably assumed there was no smoke without fire; that I must have done something wrong. At least now I can speak to people about it and get treatment.
A psychiatrist has now formally diagnosed me with moderately-severe PTSD, which was hard to accept as I always thought it was something experienced by people who'd been to war or in conflict situations, but it makes sense now he's explained what it can do to a person. Siema feels relieved by my diagnosis, too. Before she thought I was just being difficult and getting easily annoyed. Now she knows it's all part of my PTSD.
For me this PTSD is physical as well as mental. The chronic stress means I've developed an autoimmune disease and experience tremors every night, which have only worsened to 15 or so times a night in the eight or so years since this Post Office saga all started up again. That's the part we didn't see coming: we thought our lives would get better after the overturning, but the reality is they've only got harder. Just because my conviction has been overturned and we've received more than £200,000 in compensation so far (we're still owed money for the mental toll, my time in prison and other losses), in many ways it's actually more stressful now than ever, because we're still having to fight the Post Office at every single step.
It's all great PR for the Post Office whenever their staff appear on TV and say they've given us compensation, but the reality is we victims have had to fight tooth and nail for even the smallest things. We're still fighting. We're not even asking for much; just for the things we've lost. The fact that the Post Office is still in control of the whole compensation process is something I can't get my head around. How can the perpetrator be in control of the compensation schemes? It doesn't make sense. It should be overseen by an independent body.
For me, fighting the Post Office still feels like a full-time job alongside my full-time job. I had to wait until 10 years after my conviction to apply for my British citizenship (I had a Pakistani passport before) and even then it's been obstacle after obstacle. I was off work for six months last year because I couldn't cope with the pressure, because even when I'm at work, I'm receiving calls from solicitors. When I come home, I'm going through files, digging up paperwork... Anything I do like watching TV or going to the gym doesn't even bring me joy; it's just distraction from the Post Office stuff. That's why I wanted a job; to take my mind off the stress.
The only thing that keeps me going is that I can't be on benefits again; that I have to provide for my family. This whole process has taken an enormous toll on them, too. Our eldest son Usayd, 24, has chosen to go to university outside London because we don't have enough room for him to live here — we currently live in a three-bed flat in north London, after four or five rental moves since we lost our house — and our kids all suffer with mental health issues, from severe anxiety and panic attacks and depression. Siema has been suffering with depression, too.
We thought our lives would get better after my conviction was overturned, but they've only got harder... I still have tremors every night
It's all stress induced — and no wonder. The youngest two, Isra, 21, and Umays, 16, don't even remember what their dad was like before all of this happened. The house has been like a pressure cooker ever since. It's easy to think kids are immune to these things; that they're not listening, but they are. They're constantly hearing us. They just weren't saying anything.
It's sad to think the lessons our family have learnt from this whole process: that you can't put your trust in anyone or anything; that you have to do your homework; that you can't just blindly follow advice like I did. That was a very expensive lesson we had to learn and our kids definitely live like that now; that they're guilty until proven otherwise. It's not a good way to live; it's not healthy. But that's the reality of it.
The one happy memory we have from this whole period was last year, when we took the kids on a long-overdue trip to Disneyland in Orlando. Even that turned out to be a nightmare because I had to wait 10 years after my conviction to apply for my new passport and my Esta visa kept getting refused because of my conviction. We had to apply for a proper visa with an interview at the embassy to explain this. We almost gave up and cancelled the whole thing, but we're glad we went because we were finally able to make some nice memories. We don't have many memories or photos from the last 20 years; we just haven't had the opportunity.
We'll never get back the time we've lost because of this scandal. We've lost our prime years — we were both in our twenties when this whole thing started. No amount of money will bring those back — we need unlimited therapy for the whole family, and apology from the Post Office. What we're trying to focus on going-forward is what kind of future our kids can have and getting closure in whatever time we have left. For us, closure means not talking about the Post Office again, not reliving our experiences anymore. Then we can start focusing on mending our mental and physical health. Any treatment won't ever be fully effective until then.
Despite all of these traumas, we're just glad that this story has finally managed to break through thanks to ITV, albeit too late for many. Until this the four-part drama aired last week it was in the news here and there, but it never broken through, because there was Brexit, then the elections, then Covid... I did finally speak to my local MP Bambos Charalambous, MP for Enfield Southgate, after my conviction was overturned. I ended up in tears just trying to tell him what had happened. He's been very supportive, reaching out just a couple of days ago to ask how he can help us further. But until this week, it felt like most members of the public didn't care, despite it being described as the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history. It was meant to be such a serious thing yet nobody was talking about it. Why wasn't it on the front pages?
It's sad it's taken a TV drama to get us this kind of reaction, but we do appreciate the reaction. Someone described it as feeling like we're being given a massive hug by the public and that's genuinely how it feels. The TV show has also given a lot of us the confidence to speak up for the first time. This is my first-ever newspaper interview because it felt pointless before; like nobody was listening anyway. It's sad it's taken so long to get to this point, to feel like we're finally being heard, but better late than never. We're just nervous of saying anything positive or optimistic now. After last time, we don't want to jinx it.
As told to Katie Strick
