Victim of Post Office scandal says people 'need to be held to account' as he prepares for inquiry

Video report by ITV Granada Reports' correspondent Mel Barham.

A Cheshire man who was one of hundreds of victims of the Great Post Office Scandal says "people need to be held to account" as he prepares to give evidence to a public inquiry.

Scott Darlington, who worked as a sub postmaster at Alderly Edge between 2005 and 2010, was given a suspended prison sentence after being charged with false accounting.

Between 2000 and 2014, 736 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were prosecuted based on information from the faulty IT system called Horizon, installed and maintained by Fujitsu.

Scott Darlington was handed a suspended sentence after being charged with false accounting.

It was 2008 when discrepancies started appearing in the accounts at the Post Office where Scott used to work. By February 2009, those inconsistencies had risen to £44,000.

He told ITV Granada Reports: "We'd spend til midnight every night pouring over what we could get out of the system.

"Any human errors, we knew we hadn't and we were watching each other like a hawk and it just grew and grew and grew."

The convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal.  Credit: ITV News

For more than a decade Mr Darlington has been wrongly labelled a criminal and has battled to clear his name.

He said he went from having a good income to "on the dole", and would "stare out of the window thinking how I was going to get out of this situation."

Mel Barham telling ITV Granada Reports what the Post Office has said in response.

The Post Office eventually sent him a letter of apology, which he said was "a bit late."

The convictions - which have been against the names of many for almost 20 years - were quashed in 2020 by the Court of Appeal. 

Between 2000 and 2014, more than 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were prosecuted. Credit: PA images

A public inquiry, which is expected to run for the rest of this year, will look into whether the Post Office knew about faults in the IT system and will also ask how staff were made to take the blame.

Scott, who is due to give evidence next week, said the inquiry is "very important" however believes that "no compensation is correct if not held to account."

He sad: "It's not just about the money but people who caused that need to be brought to account, this is the first stage."