Postmaster shunned from home town after Horizon scandal returns 15 years later

'People thought we were criminals': Sub-postmaster Peter Holloway is joined by ITV News Correspondent Chloe Keedy as he returns to the town he fled after the Horizon Scandal

There are few things for which Peter Holloway now counts himself lucky. Living near the coast in Northumberland is one of them. Him and his wife Sue moved here, he says, "to get as far away as possible from where we used to live".

Peter and Sue’s old life was on a different coast, more than 300 miles away. He lived in the Dorset village of West Lulworth, and ran the Post Office in Wareham, nearby.

That was 15 years ago, before Peter was suspended from his job by the Post Office, which, he says, had accused him of stealing tens of thousands of pounds. 

The money had gone missing from Peter’s branch, and the Post Office threatened to prosecute him if he didn’t pay it back. 

"I paid the losses out of our own funds," he said. "So eventually it got to a point where we were basically working for no money because we were paying so much money each month to the Post Office.

"I had to draw cash out on the credit card to pay the staff. 

"They said you must be stealing, and I said 'why would I do that?' If money is short, I would have to pay it back. Why would I steal?"

The shortfalls were caused by the now famously faulty Post Office Horizon software, but neither Peter, nor his customers, knew that at the time. Over the years, Peter estimates he lost more than £100,000.

"We were ostracised," he recalls. "People didn’t want to know us. Financially, it ruined us. We nearly lost everything we had worked for all our lives. People thought we were criminals."

Sue is still too traumatised to talk about it. But Peter, accompanied by his daughter Sam, agreed make the difficult journey back to Dorset with us to see the people and the Post Office he hasn’t set eyes on for over a decade.  

How did he feel about doing that? "Nervous," he told me.

He explained he and Sue had been back only once before, not long after they left. But he said they were made to feel unwelcome and found it too upsetting. They had vowed never to go back. 

"I never thought I’d be standing here again in my life," Peter said, peering in through the door of his old Post Office. "I was really not looking forward to it. It brings back terrible memories, but I know it’s not my fault.

"The government and [the Post Office] are still not giving us our compensation, they’re not paying us back our money, they won’t pay our legal fees.

"They are just wicked people. We were doing our best to make their business a success and they just stabbed us in the back and threw us away like dirt."

Their previously perfect life here, he says, was then made even more difficult by the fact that many of his customers and neighbours trusted the Post Office rather than believing him. 

As we drove into the village of West Lulworth, he admitted that he was feeling apprehensive about how he would be greeted after all this time. 

Those that knew Peter welcomed him with open arms, telling me that "he should never have had to leave".

Some of Peter’s old neighbours invited us in for a cup of tea and a catch up. But even Dave, a close friend who always stood by him, admitted there was a time when he struggled to make sense of it all.

"If you’re honest with yourself, you know there’s that – at the back of your mind – even if it was your own children, at the back of your mind, you’d have thought – 'is there a possibility?' With such a trusted institution as the Post Office, it’s what made that germ of doubt."

Dave’s wife, Elaine, agrees. "There is a phrase," she says, "there’s no smoke without fire."

Peter says he feels "incredibly bitter" towards the Post Office now.

He is still waiting for repayment for what he lost, and is calling on the prime minister and the government to speed up the compensation scheme, as well as pay the legal fees of the group of sub-postmasters who took the Post Office to court.

It’s taken 15 years and a TV drama to make Peter finally feel his story would be understood.

What he didn’t know, as we drove back towards the town of Wareham, is how many people were waiting to hear it.

We had tracked down some of the old customers and friends he hadn’t seen since he left, who were waiting inside a community cafe to surprise Peter with a banner that read "welcome back."

They called him a "pillar of the community", as Peter, becoming emotional, told them he had been "through hell". 

He told me he had been dreading this trip, but said that, to his surprise, it had been part of a "healing process." 

He never did blame the people here. It’s the Post Office he says he can’t forgive - for taking him away from them for so long.

The Post Office declined to comment on Peter's story.

A Department for Business and Trade Spokesperson said: "We are committed to righting the wrongs of the past, ensuring sub-postmasters are rightly compensated for the hardship they have endured."

The spokesperson added the department is "speeding up compensation" and bringing forward "legislation... to overturn the convictions of those who were wrongly prosecuted".

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