Did the Post Office scandal begin before the Horizon software?
Could the Post Office scandal go back before the Horizon software? ITV News Correspondent Chloe Keedy reports
The stories told in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office provoked national outrage. They also turned their real-life subjects - former subpostmasters and mistresses - into household names.
For months since it aired, revelations about the Post Office have kept coming, as subpostmasters who stayed silent for decades started to share their own stories.
But if you thought the Post Office scandal couldn’t get any worse, a new ITV documentary might make you think again.
It contains allegations that problems with Post Office accounting software started long before the infamous Horizon system was introduced, claiming that Capture - its forerunner - was also faulty.
Steve Marston, 68, believes he was wrongly convicted of theft and false accounting because of errors caused by Capture.
He received a 12-month suspended sentence and was sacked from his branch in Bury, Greater Manchester when auditors found a shortfall of £79,000.
Steve lost his income, his savings and his family home. He was forced to declare himself bankrupt and move into a caravan with his wife and two children.
"We sold our wedding rings, my wife sold all of her jewellery. We sold everything," Steve told me.
He also described being "dropped like a stone" by his friends.
"When it came to ... the time to go for sentencing, I was told to try and get some references from friends, so I wrote to a few and not one of them responded - even my best man."
For 25 years, Steve believed the shortfalls were down to his own "incompetence".
It wasn’t until last year when he started to read about subpostmasters who had had problems with their Horizon software, that he first realised he might not be alone.
Steve is now convinced that Horizon’s predecessor was faulty too.
He showed me a floppy disk which he said had an old version of Capture on it - the same one as he used in his post office.
With the help of Rupert Lloyd Thomas, a former IT specialist for the Post Office who is now working on behalf of subpostmasters, Steve has been running tests on old copies of Capture.
He says seeing the software again has brought back "so many bad memories," but claims: "We have managed to reproduce faults, reproduce losses - there isn’t a version, from what we can tell, of Capture that hasn’t had problems."
The government is now carrying out an independent investigation into Capture which the Post Office says it fully supports. The findings are expected to be published later this month.
Steve hopes it could ultimately lead to his conviction finally being quashed, which he says would mean "everything" to him.
"To get my good name back … It’s destroyed us. We’re not the people we used to be. I used to be outgoing. Now I get nervous even going into a shop."The government is now carrying out an independent investigation into Capture and the findings are expected to be published later this month.
In response to the programme, the Post Office said:
“We have been very concerned about reported problems with the Capture software and are fully supporting the Department for Business and Trade’s ongoing independent investigation”
Steve hopes it could ultimately lead to his conviction finally being quashed, which he says would mean "everything" to him.
"To get my good name back … It’s destroyed us. We’re not the people we used to be. I used to be outgoing. Now I get nervous even going into a shop."
If you have an experience of working with Capture or have been affected by the Horizon scandal, please get in touch with the investigations team by emailing investigations@itv.com
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