'Don't boycott Post Office over Horizon scandal,' pleads victim suspended over faulty software
A former subpostmaster who was suspended in the Horizon scandal has urged people not to boycott the Post Office - insisting it would punish low-paid staff instead of those responsible.
The scandal saw the wrongful prosecution of 550 Post Office staff, many of whom were subsequently jailed, bankrupted and in some cases, took their own lives.
Graham Ward was twice suspended because of the faulty software system and was left £45,000 in debt - but said that well-intentioned outrage at the Post Office would merely punish those who had suffered already.
"It's not the man behind the counter that's caused this problem," he told ITV News Anglia.
"They're still going through this. It's all still happening.
"They don't even get minimum wage, so don't boycott the post offices, get out and support them. Use them, otherwise we will lose them all."
Subpostmasters were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting based on data produced by the faulty IT system, Horizon, that the Post Office made them use from the late 1990s.
The faulty software made it appear money was going missing from their branches and the Post Office relentlessly pursued people between 1999 and 2015.
It has since been described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history.
The Post Office routinely denied there were any problems with Horizon, despite knowing that from at least 2010 onwards there were faults in the accounting software.
Since the broadcast of the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office, more than one million people have signed a petition to strip Paula Vennells, who was the chief executive of the Post Office at the time, of her CBE.
Ms Vennells was ordained in the Church of England as a deacon and later a priest and served as a non-stipendiary minister at the Church of St Owen in Bromham in St Albans.
She has also served as a non-executive board member of the Cabinet Office.
Mr Ward, former sub-postmaster and shop owner in Rivenhall, near Witham in Essex, was suspended for what the Post Office called an "unexplained loss of £1,900" in 2005.
He was reinstated after a month, only to be suspended again in October 2008.
He ended up leaving his shop for good in 2011, faced with £45,000 worth of debts.
Mr Ward said he was now hopeful of action, as political pressure mounts to correct widespread injustice.
"I think something will happen now. There will be an announcement of some kind," he said.
"The trouble is we've had lots of announcement; announcements don't mean anything. It's just action we need now."
But he said the staff still working on the front line for the Post Office still needed the public's support.
"I understand how people are feeling. You see this story on the television and you think 'I don't want to support that.'
"But really, I think about 90% of post offices are like the one I had. It's an individual that runs it, like a franchise.
"The income for the postmaster comes from the transactions that are made and if people don't come in, they don't earn anything.
"So boycotting the post office will not affect the wages of the people in head office that prosecuted people and lied to people.
"It'll only affect the people sitting at the counter and then they'll lose their post offices and they'll lose their village shops and that just isn't right."
On Monday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's spokesman said he would "strongly support" a probe into whether Ms Vennells should be stripped of her CBE.
The prime minister's official spokesman said Mr Sunak would back the Honours Forfeiture Committee if it decided to consider revoking her CBE after more than 1,047,000 signed a petition demanding it do so.
Mr Sunak, speaking at an event in Accrington, also said the government would "do everything" it could for those affected by the scandal but sidestepped a question on whether he would allow a mass appeal for exonerations.
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