Broken trust, fear of collusion and lost time: Families torn apart by Post Office scandal

The ripple effect of the Horizon scandal is still felt in relationships years on from the initial convictions. ITV News Correspondent Sangita Lal reports

Left without his family - like so many victims - Tim Brentnall thought he was alone. 

In 2008, there was a shortfall of £22,000 at the post office he ran with his parents in Pembrokeshire.

Despite knowing he hadn't taken the money he tried to pay the missing amount and turned to his parents for help.

He had always been close with them and they wanted to support him in any way they could. But Tim says they grew suspicious of him when he couldn't provide them with answers. 

Tim said he felt like a stranger to his own family and struggled to accept that they no longer trusted him. 

Over time, Tim paid thousands of pounds to the Post Office which cleared him of his theft charge but the accusations cost him his marriage.

In 2010, he was convicted of false accounting and sentenced to 20 weeks in jail suspended for 18 months and 200 hours of unpaid work. He was also told he had to pay a £1000 fine. 

Four years later he and his wife separated. 

"The Post Office was a big part of the end of my marriage because it created such a trust issue between us on both sides, I was frustrated that I wasn't believed and she felt I was holding back from her and not being open and honest," Tim said.

Due to the separation Tim says he sees his daughter every other weekend and during holidays.

He says his relationship with her has been forever changed because of how the Post Office treated him.

So many victims in this scandal have not only lost their business and security for their future, they've lost their families too. 

In 2009, Tracey Merrit was asked to switch over to the Horizon system in the post office she ran with her daughter Lisa in Dorset.

When the numbers didn’t add up - she says instead of being helped she was threatened and forced to tear her family apart. 

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Tracey says the Post Office told her she couldn't speak to her daughter and that if she did she'd be accused of collusion. 

After years of working side by side, Tracey had to fire her own child.

She described the whole thing as "an absolute nightmare".

"You can't put your finger on one bad day because the whole thing just became a blackhole where it was one bad day after another," Tracey added.

The pair went a year an a half without speaking, terrified of what would happen if they did. 

During that time Lisa fell pregnant and couldn’t tell her mother - who had to find out through a friend.

"I didn't know how I was going to cope without my mum and dad, all I'd ever known was family life and it's like a bomb going off and you've got no-one," Lisa said.

Tracey couldn’t stay away anymore and spoke to a solicitor who told her there was no court order preventing her seeing her daughter.

She says she'll never get back what they lost.

"I lost my reputation, I lost my purpose in life, I lost who I was," Tracey said.

"You buy a post office and you think it's a trusted company and you think 'I'm okay' and then it turns into a massive nightmare that sucks your family in and ruins your family."

Like so many victims, they know the inquiry may bring some justice, and the post office has apologised but the lies and deceit can never be undone.

A Post Office spokesperson told ITV News that is "shares the aims" of the public inquiry "to get to the truth of what went wrong in the past and establish accountability".

"It’s for the Inquiry to reach its own independent conclusions after consideration of all the evidence on the issues that it is examining.

"We are doing all we can to put right the wrongs of the past, including providing full and fair compensation for those affected and offers of more than £138 million have been made to around 2,700 Postmasters, the vast majority of which are agreed and paid.”

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