Son of Scots postmaster sued over £78,000 mystery shortfalls says stress of ordeal 'killed him'

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https://uk.news.yahoo.com/son-scots-pos ... 00246.html

The son of a late postmaster who was forced to pay £78,000 in mystery shortfalls before the Horizon scandal came to light says the stress of the ordeal "killed him". Cameron Still says his late dad Arthur was taken to court after discrepancies at his post office in the late 90s while he was being treated for cancer.

Arthur died in 2009 after his cancer returned, without having learned what happened to the missing cash which cost him his business and his pension. Now Cameron, 61, has joined other postmasters seeking justice after around 700 were prosecuted over the faulty Horizon IT system and countless more were forced to plug black holes in their accounts from their own pockets.

He said: "My dad just kept saying ‘where has the money gone? I’ve given you £78,000 and lost my business but where has it gone? It killed him. I’ve no doubt about it. Dad was going through ­treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma when the money was supposed to be going missing.

"He got rid of the cancer but it came back and he died in 2009 – about 10 years later. We now believe that money went to feed the profit shares of people who should be going to jail."

Arthur was having treatment when issues arose at his post office in Greenock, Renfrewshire, which was being run by other staff, in 1996.

Horizon had not been rolled out yet - but earlier cases have now come under scrutiny due to similar issues of unexplained shortfalls and wrongful prosecutions around previous accounting systems.

Cameron said: "The Post Office investigations branch arrived in the shop and did and audit. They found letters to my dad, hidden, saying there had been shortages.

"Then there was an accusation that £30,000 had been delivered to the post office that day that didn’t come in. The investigations branch guys ruled the roost. He said he wanted the police but they said they basically were the police - they had their own powers.

"Dad was suspended. He was gobsmacked. At no time did anyone accuse him of taking the money but I think that would have changed if dad had refused to pay the money.

"His contract was ­terminated and he was sued. He had to pay legal fees and lost the value of the post office, which we could have sold to somebody.”

In addition to the £66,873 pursued in court, Cameron says a further £10,960 was repaid by Arthur for losses after his suspension when the post office was being run under the Post Office management ­themselves. He paid £77,863 in total.

He said: "My dad was a very strong, fit and intelligent man. He was a senior member of the church and a pharmacist with an unblemished record.

"He didn’t want the post office in the pharmacy but he was pushed into it. It was horrific financially. He was fortunate because he had just sold a pharmaceutical ­business. He had cash but that was his pension and it just disappeared."

Compensation, handled by the UK Government via the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme, has so far paid £768million to 5100 claimants. Several cases involving the Capture IT system, which was used before Horizon, have been sent for scrutiny by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

Cameron says he has not been able to obtain any details of his dad’s probe, nor confirm if Capture was being used, but lawyers are working on the case.

He attended the launch of a peer support group Scottish ­Postmasters for Justice and Redress at Holyrood this week. He said: "I’m not in this for the money. I want to see justice served and understand what happened."

Up to 100 postmasters in ­Scotland were prosecuted between 2000 and 2014 because of the Horizon system. By February, 86 cases in ­Scotland had been reviewed, with 64 convictions quashed.

A Post Office spokesman said: "We are sincerely sorry for past failings that have caused suffering to postmasters and determined that wrongs are put right. The Government is ­encouraging current or former postmasters or their families to get in touch if they may have been affected by issues with Capture software."