Post Office scandal: Former Kent sub-postmistress tells inquiry of moment police came to charge her

Video report by ITV News Meridian's Kit Bradshaw

A former Kent sub-postmistress who lost her job after being wrongly accused of stealing thousands of pounds has described the emotional moment that police came to her door to charge her with theft.

Grandmother Pauline Thomson has been giving evidence to a public inquiry in London, looking at whether the Post Office knew about the faults in the Horizon computer systems and how staff took the blame.

In 2008, Ms Thomson ran the Post Office branch in the village of Matfield, near Tunbridge Wells, before the computerised till began reporting discrepancies with the transitions it was logging and the amount of money in the till. 

The shortfalls totalled some £34,000 by September that year, when Post Office auditors came around with police to charge her.

• Pauline Thomson

Giving evidence on Monday (21 February) Ms Thomson said: "One of them said they've just gone to get some paperwork.

"Then five minutes later, a police car pulled up in front of the post office.

"The two policemen came in and the investigator, who wouldn't talk to me at all, immediately said - 'charge her with theft'."

Ms Thomson went on to explain how she was initially charged with theft, but eventually accepted a lesser charge of false accounting as part of a plea agreement. She avoided prison, but she lost her job and her livelihood.

"I just feel that nobody has been held responsible, nobody has held their hands up and said 'we got it wrong'.

"Everybody has just been moved to one side, given another job and yet they went on, and on, and on and prosecuted all these people."

Ms Thomson's conviction for false accounting, along with those of 38 others, was quashed at the court of appeal last year.

In a statement, the Post Office said: "Whilst it is not appropriate to comment on any individual cases, Post Office is in no doubt of the human cost of the Horizon scandal and we are doing all we can to fairly address this for victims."

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