'Where is the justice?': Post Office victims on compensation 'cruelty'

It's because of what these women lost that they eventually found each other, ITV News' Chloe Keedy reports

Sitting in the middle of the group, there was Tracey Merritt. She was wrongly accused by the Post Office of stealing £13,500 from her branch in Dorset.

Sitting next to Tracey was Jess Kaur, a former sub-postmistress from the West Midlands. She was accused of stealing £11,000 and subsequently charged with 36 counts of theft.

Marion Holmes had come on behalf of her late husband, Peter. In 2010, he was convicted of false accounting after shortfalls at his branch in Newcastle. Peter died before his conviction could be overturned.

For years the Post Office had made them believe they were on their own. But it’s because of what these women lost that they eventually found each other.

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I joined nine of them as they met in a hotel room in central London. It was the first time they had come together as a group. Sitting in a circle, they told me they now draw strength from each other.

"It's really nice to connect," Tracey explained. "Because it grounds you back and you realise that - you know - you're still not the only one, and you’ve got that support with each other.

"Yes you can talk to your husband, you can talk to your friend, but having this lot... You all understand exactly what you’re going through," Sue Knight, a former sub-postmistress from Cornwall said.

Deirdre Connolly was accused of stealing thousands from her Post Office branch in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

She said: "If we tried to tell people what happened they didn’t understand it until the drama came out."

In that ITV drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, former sub-postmasters and mistresses and their families saw their stories played out on TV.

Among them were Suzanne Bates, who recently married her long-term partner – the famous Alan Bates, as well as Jo Hamilton and Jess Kaur.

They all say the show changed everything – and yet still hasn’t changed enough.

Many are yet to receive their full financial settlements.

One of those is Seema Misra. She was sent to prison after being wrongly convicted of stealing £70,000 from her Post Office in Surrey. She was eight weeks pregnant at the time.

"It's not like compensation - it’s our own money we are asking for," she told me.

Suzanne Bates accused the government of "prolonging the cruelty".

The government says it is working tirelessly to provide full, fair and swift redress. But 92-year-old Betty Brown – the oldest Post Office victim – is still waiting for hers.

"We have proved we are 100% innocent," she said. "There’s not one person been prosecuted and we were victimised and are still being victimised. That’s what binds us together."

Betty appealed to the prime minister to invite the women to Downing Street.

"We’ll sit round a table with you," she said. "We’ll sort you out."

Sue Knight told the group that she feels embarrassed about the fact she has had her financial redress, when others in the group have not. "Until they’ve all had it I don’t feel I can celebrate," she explained.

Even for those who have now had criminal convictions quashed the pain is still palpable.

Seema Misra’s parents didn’t live to see her get her name cleared, and Marion’s husband Peter died before his own exoneration.

"It was bittersweet for me," she said. "You just think, why couldn’t it have been before he died?"

These women now share with each other experiences that some of them couldn’t talk about for years.

Not even to their own children.

Jess Kaur had a mental breakdown and tried to take her own life when she was taken to court by the Post Office.

"We never really spoke about it," she said. "So (my kids) got to see what I went through by watching the drama, which was quite emotional for everybody."

Tracey told the group that, as a mother, she felt "really guilty" because she "didn’t protect" her children from the Post Office.

"I brought these nasty, horrible people into their lives," she said. "I didn’t do my job."

But ultimately, all of these women were just doing their jobs. And every one of them is still living with the consequences.

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