Scots victims of Post Office Horizon scandal back calls to strip ex chief of top honour

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Scots victims of the Horizon scandal have backed calls to strip a former Post Office chief of a top honour amid a furious public backlash to a new hard-hitting drama.ITV's Mr Bates Vs The Post Office has this week depicted what has been branded the most widespread miscarriage of justice in the UK, when a faulty computer system led to hundreds of former postmasters being wrongly blamed for missing cash.The real people whose lives were shattered hope the show will help see former CEO Paula Vennells and other senior Post Office figures at the helm at the time of the scandal finally being held to account.Anne Quarm, who recently saw late husband, North Uist postmaster William’s conviction overturned, said: “This has taken away our lives and it’s just horrendous to think people like that should be honoured when they’re behind this terrible injustice.

It’s insulting and it’s painful.“Our family’s lives have been destroyed and no matter what compensation anyone gets it will never return to us what we had.“We’re all getting older and we’d like to finally see justice being done.”More than 700 people were prosecuted for theft and false accounting between 2000 and 2014 after the Post Office’s flawed Fujitsu IT system incorrectly suggested catalogues of financial shortfalls - with some serving jail time.Over 70 Scots workers were forced to pay out thousands to the Post Office during this time.Ms Vennells - the CEO of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019 - was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2019 New Year Honours List for services to the organisation.She apologised for the “suffering” caused to subpostmasters following a series of quashed convictions two years later.Get the latest news sent straight to your