Imagine your life unraveling due to a single technological glitch, your name wrongfully tainted, and your freedom hanging by a thread. Wendy Buffery, a former sub-postmistress, lived this nightmare, caught in the throes of the UK's post office scandal. Her compelling account unfolds in our latest episode, as she recounts the chilling effect of a £36,000 accounting discrepancy and the cascade of events that led her to plead guilty under duress. Wendy's ordeal was compounded by isolation, confusion, and the specter of imprisonment, all of which she bravely shares with us.
The heart of our discussion with Wendy lies in the emotional toll wrought by the Post Office's misguided trust in the flawed Horizon system. The scandal, which saw many like Wendy wrongfully convicted, has sparked public outrage and a collective clamor for accountability. We hear from Wendy about the personal and financial devastation of her wrongful conviction, the fight for fair compensation, and the unyielding resilience she and her peers have mustered in the face of profound adversity. Wendy's insights into the pursuit of justice—rather than revenge—pose a powerful testament to the human spirit.
Join us as we also shine a light on the unity and strength within the community of those affected by this scandal. Wendy's tale is one strand in a tapestry of shared experiences, where solidarity and mutual support have become their own forms of resistance. Together, they stand firm in seeking compensation and closure, their bonds of camaraderie echoing the importance of standing up to systemic failures. This episode isn't just an individual's story; it's a narrative of collective power, a rallying cry for truth, and a beacon of hope for all battling against the odds.
Imagine your life unraveling due to a single technological glitch, your name wrongfully tainted, and your freedom hanging by a thread. Wendy Buffery, a former sub-postmistress, lived this nightmare, caught in the throes of the UK's post office scandal. Her compelling account unfolds in our latest episode, as she recounts the chilling effect of a £36,000 accounting discrepancy and the cascade of events that led her to plead guilty under duress. Wendy's ordeal was compounded by isolation, confusion, and the specter of imprisonment, all of which she bravely shares with us.
The heart of our discussion with Wendy lies in the emotional toll wrought by the Post Office's misguided trust in the flawed Horizon system. The scandal, which saw many like Wendy wrongfully convicted, has sparked public outrage and a collective clamor for accountability. We hear from Wendy about the personal and financial devastation of her wrongful conviction, the fight for fair compensation, and the unyielding resilience she and her peers have mustered in the face of profound adversity. Wendy's insights into the pursuit of justice—rather than revenge—pose a powerful testament to the human spirit.
Join us as we also shine a light on the unity and strength within the community of those affected by this scandal. Wendy's tale is one strand in a tapestry of shared experiences, where solidarity and mutual support have become their own forms of resistance. Together, they stand firm in seeking compensation and closure, their bonds of camaraderie echoing the importance of standing up to systemic failures. This episode isn't just an individual's story; it's a narrative of collective power, a rallying cry for truth, and a beacon of hope for all battling against the odds.
Welcome to a special episode of Kevjet the podcast. This week's guest is former sub-postmistress Wendy Buffery. Wendy was wrongfully convicted in the UK's infamous post office scandal. I asked her about the training she received on the Horizon system when it was introduced.
Speaker 2:It was a day, that was it. It was around about four hours actually on the computers and all we were shown to do was how to sell things. Then we were given a booklet to work the rest of it.
Speaker 1:She tells me when it all started going wrong.
Speaker 2:When I pressed the button I had a 36,000-px slot. At that time I lost it. I didn't tell or say anything to anyone. Went through every bit of paperwork that I got. I could not find what had gone wrong, but I knew I was going to be asked for that 36,000-px. It's not something you have found now and they just kept saying, well, this can't happen. This hasn't ever happened to anybody else.
Speaker 1:She shares the legal advice she was first given.
Speaker 2:I was persuaded by my barrister to plead guilty because he said if I didn't I would go to jail. By that time my head was completely shot. So I pled guilty to something I didn't do.
Speaker 1:Wendy shares how it all became too much and she had a plan to take her own life.
Speaker 2:I took a bottle of water and all these tablets in my pocket and I was going to end it all because I thought I was a burden to my family and the best thing for me was to not be there. And then my phone went and I answered it and it was Joe Hamilton, and she told me I wasn't the only one. Two hours later I was back at my car hanging up the phone from her and I hadn't taken any tablets. I went home and told my husband that we weren't the only ones. They prosecuted us maliciously. No amount of money in this world will ever make up for what they did. It's been proven again and again and again that we did nothing wrong, but still they treat us as though we have.
Speaker 1:How does she feel about Paula Venals handing in her CBE?
Speaker 2:Her. Handing it back in doesn't seem punishment enough. It would have been better, I think, if it had been removed from her.
Speaker 1:She explains what hurts the most out of the post office scandal.
Speaker 2:The Horizon System was a piece of technology. People ran that pathology. People decided to lie about what was happening. People took us to court. People investigated us. People ruined our lives.
Speaker 1:Wendy's resilience shines as a beacon of hope, inspiring us all to fight for truth, redemption and the restoration of shattered lives. Be prepared to be both inspired and outraged. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Wendy Buffery. Welcome Wendy Buffery to Kevjet the podcast, thank you. Thank you very much for joining me. I've been looking forward to having this conversation with you. So, wendy, tell me a little bit about yourself. You're a former sub post mistress for the Royal Mail, the post office. Let's go back to the beginning. What sparked your interest to get into the post office business?
Speaker 2:I used to be a sales rep out on the road but because of computers coming in, we were no longer required to go and visit different premises and things to get orders and that they could be done online. So I knew I was going to be made redundant. So a friend of mine had a post office so did some work there and found that I really liked the fact that there was lots of customers and chatting to people and doing what I needed to do for them. We decided that perhaps buying a post office was a good idea.
Speaker 1:And so when you say we, it's you and your husband Doug, is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my husband, doug, although he didn't have anything to do with the post office. That was just myself doing that. Where the post office was, it was integral to the home that we bought alongside it.
Speaker 1:So it was, we were all there, but Doug didn't actually have anything to do with the post office and I think I read a report that you guys did lots of renovations when you bought the post office.
Speaker 2:We did yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:So the post office becomes the heart of your community, doesn't it? And you get to know everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it is the heart of the community. It always has been People. Actually, if we had a problem in the area, we had one lady that had somebody knocking on her door telling her that he needed to read her meter, etc. And when she let him into her house she was obviously very aware that he was there to steal, not to actually do anything. So she came to us and that's what it was like. People in the area came to us if they were in trouble or if they needed anything, or plus, obviously, the business that we did at the same time.
Speaker 1:Of course. How many years were you in the post office before you were introduced to the Horizon Two?
Speaker 2:The first two years everything was paper-based. Okay, paper-based was very easy. You know, you knew exactly where everything was very rarely more than about 50p out, because you had everything there and you could find. If there'd been a mistake you could find it. Sure, it was very, very easy. Our computers were put in in 2000 and 2001, that business year and I used them really without any problems until 2006.
Speaker 1:What was the training like?
Speaker 2:It was a day in a local hotel. Well, it was supposed to be a day. We got there at nine. By the time everybody had had coffee and biscuits and we'd sat down and in show night to sell a stamp. It was lunchtime and then, in between, some of the subpost mistresses and masters crying because they didn't understand the computer system itself. That was it. I went the one day and two. Well, myself and one of my staff went one day and then the other two went the next day, but it was around about four hours actually on the computers and all we were shown to do was how to sell things. Okay, and then we were given a booklet to work the rest out from.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness. And so I would imagine for some people it would be the first time that they're actually working on a computer with computer software. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean myself. All I'd ever done on a computer was play the table tennis game because that had just come out, Send emails, and that was all I'd ever done on a computer before. Wow. But I must admit, when it first went in, it saved me a lot of time. It was, you know. I thought, oh, this is wonderful, Wow.
Speaker 2:It was instead of staying for hours and hours and hours relooking through things. If you needed to, it was press a button and it was done. And until it went wrong, it was great. Sure, and how long did it work, fine.
Speaker 1:When did it go wrong? It did it once in 2006.
Speaker 2:In 2006, and I had an 8,000 pound loss and I still to this day. I don't know what caused that. Because of my contract and the way the contract was written, I was actually responsible for that money. I put it in when we were still doing paper-based accounts. I had a member of staff that disappeared and she never. She came into work the day the auditors turned up and then she didn't come back again and we found a thousand pounds missing. She disappeared off to Greece, never to be seen again and obviously I was responsible for that thousand pound, even though they were perfectly aware that it had gone on holiday. Sure, I was still responsible for that money. Then, when the 8,000 pound went, I thought, oh gosh, I'm still going to be held responsible for it. I don't want to be suspended. Because they suspended me the first time. The thousand pound went and I was suspended without pay for about three weeks.
Speaker 1:And they were completely aware of the situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I didn't want to be suspended, so I put the 8,000 pounds in and then, come 2008, I had 700 books of 100 stamps turn up in my stock account. Well, I hadn't rem those in, I hadn't had those delivered and I didn't have that many books of stamps of the 100 books of 100 stamps. You know, I didn't have that many in. You know, I've never had that many.
Speaker 1:Sure, it's. What was it? 18,000 pounds.
Speaker 2:Well, it was 9,000 pounds worth of stamps. So I thought, well, that shouldn't be there. So I got my books out and I reversed it out. Now, when I reversed it out, it gave me a 9,000 pound loss because the computer said I'd sold them rather than taking back out something that shouldn't be there. I thought, okay, I've done that wrong, I'll get the books out, go through the books, did what it told me to do and press the button, and I had an 18,000 pounds lost. It It'll double. I thought, oh, this is mad. You know I've definitely done something wrong. I didn't bother to ring the help line because the help line were worse than useless. They read from a script. If it wasn't on that script, you didn't really get any help. Or they would say reboot it, unplug it and plug it back in again, and that was all we ever really got. So I got the book out and I got my finger and I went along and followed every single thing to the absolute letter and when I pressed the button I had a 36,000 pounds lost.
Speaker 1:My goodness.
Speaker 2:And at that time I lost it. You know, I didn't tell my husband, I didn't tell the staff that worked with me.
Speaker 1:Were you in communication with other people at this point? No, so you were solely on your own dealing with others.
Speaker 2:So I didn't tell or say anything to anyone. I spent hours every night after the shop had finished or the post office had closed and went through every bit of paperwork that I got. I could not find what had gone wrong, but I knew I was going to be asked for that 36,000 pounds. It's not something you have in the house.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:And I did something silly and I rolled over. I rolled over into the next month saying that I had that money, which was a mistake and I shouldn't have done it, and it's, but this was all new to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this was all new to you. Yeah, the system was new.
Speaker 2:I mean it was the biggest regret I got, but since found out it wouldn't have matter whether I didn't do that or I had done that. I would have still been in the same position.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Because the post office would have treated me in exactly the same way, so that was in the May and also at this time.
Speaker 1:am I right in saying your husband was ill with COPD?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's correct. Well, at the time we thought it was lung cancer, but obviously after the test and that we found that it wasn't, so how?
Speaker 1:are you dealing with all of this stress?
Speaker 2:Not dealing with it. That was the issue, because I'd internalized everything.
Speaker 1:It made me ill. Sure Were you going on as normal to other people?
Speaker 2:Yeah, as normal to everybody else. Happy Wendy. You know, smiley Wendy, everything's fine. I maxed out my credit cards and put 10,000 pounds back in. All the profit from the shop was going in and that lasted until October. Imagine having that 60s stomach feeling going on for six months With myself. I'm a comfort eater. So I put five, six stone on Just from eating and stress, which obviously affected my health as well. And then the auditors walked through the door and they started the audit. And I said to the auditor I need to tell you something. There's. This is what happened. This is how it happened. I've got all the paperwork here to show you. But I did roll over and I said, before we do anything else, I need to go and tell my husband, walk through to the house and explain to him what had gone on. He wasn't best pleased, called me a lot of silly names. I was in. Why on Earth Didn't you Tell Me, not in any other way?
Speaker 1:No, in a supportive way.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I went back through. During this time I'd not signed any of my cash accounts because I knew they were wrong and I didn't want to sign on the bottom line to say there's something wrong with these. I was then sort of in quite a state and quite emotional and the two auditors stood one side of one, each side of me, and they physically forced me to sign them. But it was very obvious that if I didn't sign them there was going to be a lot more trouble is basically what they said. So I signed them.
Speaker 2:At the time I didn't know that I could initial them and right next to them signed under duress. I'd never had any involvement with the police or the law or anything like that, so I didn't know I could do that. I was suspended on the spot, asked to go to a meeting to discuss what had happened a couple of weeks later I wasn't allowed to take a solicitor. I could only take somebody that actually worked in a post office, and I went to our union that I'd been paying into for a long time, the National Federation of Subpostmasters, only to be told, because I've been suspended, I was no longer a Subpostmaster.
Speaker 2:Therefore, they couldn't do anything to help me. There was an executive for the NFSP who was another Subpostmaster, who was called Mark Baker and he was our area rep, sort of thing. And I said to him I don't know what to do. Mark, I don't know what to do. They won't let me take any. He said right, in that case I will come as a friend rather than from the Federation. Thank goodness he did that, because I would have been on my own, honey, not. I went in there thinking we were going to talk about paperwork that I got. Because I did manage to grab that paperwork and come out with it because I I knew that was my proof of what had happened, but they weren't interested in that. They didn't. They really didn't want to know.
Speaker 1:They had their mind maned up before you even arrived.
Speaker 2:Absolutely absolutely. They told Mark he wasn't allowed to say anything, Not quite as politely as that, but that was before the tape went on. And it was only when that tape went on that I realized I was doing an interview under caution. I hadn't realised that was what was going to be happening. I thought I was going there and they were going to ask me what had happened and then they would go away and investigate. But that wasn't what happened at all. We went through two audio tapes of my telling them what happened and them telling me or saying well, what did you do with it? You know, yeah, what do you drive? I said, well, 25 year old Volvo. Well, you haven't spent it on a car. Then, when have you been on holiday? I said well, I've only had one holiday since I've been a suppose mistress, and that was six years ago.
Speaker 1:So you're being accused right from the start.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they wanted all my bank details and everything. I suppose it's not a problem, you can have, I've got nothing to hide. Sure, you can have all of that. You can have anything you want, because I'm not hiding anything. This is what happened and they just kept saying, well, this can't happen, this hasn't ever happened to anybody else, which obviously subsequently I found out that that was incorrect. Then, once that was done, I went to. Well, I came away, I was. Then I went to another meeting that was called a reason to urge meeting, and that was me going to the management and giving them a reason as to why they should keep me on. But when I actually did go, basically they were just telling me that they were severing my contract.
Speaker 1:Goodness.
Speaker 2:And they would be in touch at some point when they done some investigation and I thought, well, at least they're going to investigate it. Sure, well, that's a big relief. Okay, I've lost the post office, but there's nothing I can do about that. So basically, I wasn't allowed to enter the post office in my own property. I had to hand the keys over to my staff and at one point they wanted to know if my staff had taken the money. But they were willing for me to hand my keys over to my staff. And then another sub postmaster came in and ran it with my staff and paid me a rental to be in there.
Speaker 2:I went back to a previous job, working in the ambulance service on a frontline ambulance for a while and then I think it was 18 months later. I hadn't heard anything for 18 months from anyone, despite my phone in and asking what was going on, and nothing. And then we had a special delivery envelope through the post, one for me and one for my husband. It was a proceeds of crime order which meant they froze all our finances. We weren't allowed to sell our property, we weren't allowed to do anything, which was difficult, and I couldn't run my shop properly because I had no money to control, to go and buy any stock or anything like that. So the post office carried on. So you're tired.
Speaker 1:They get now.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah. The post office carried on and the shop just dwindled to nothing. I had to sell the things I had in there at a reduced price just to try and get some cash in, because obviously my husband wasn't working, I was the only wage earner, hence the reason why I had to go back to the ambulance service and work there. And then, about six weeks after that, I had a summons to magistrates court and that they were going to charge me with theft, which broke my heart, because I've never stolen anything from anyone. I would give anybody my last penny if it would help them.
Speaker 1:And still at this point you haven't had any contact with anybody else from a different post office, so you still think you're.
Speaker 2:Still think I'm the only one and they worked on that because they knew that everybody who was a sub postmaster was very proud of the fact that they were a sub postmaster and for people to think you were a thief, it just made you pull into yourself. You didn't want to be out there. Then I went to magistrates court and I pled not guilty because the amount that was missing was over 25,000 pounds. A so-called missing that meant it had to go to the Crown Court, which is a higher court in the UK. We then managed to get permission to sell the property in the post office from them, as long as we paid the money that they wanted back out of the proceeds of it. So we put it on the market. We managed to get a sale, but it was for around about 200,000 pounds less than the property and everything was worth.
Speaker 1:My goodness.
Speaker 2:But because we were desperate to have that money to pay to the post office, we agreed to do it and we agreed to buy a house, a small house locally, when we actually sold the post office rather than them. Just take the 26,000 pounds and leave the rest of the money in the pot so we could go and live in this house. They kept the lot. We got all our stuff in bands. We got nowhere to go.
Speaker 2:We moved in with our son. Then I had to go to court and I was persuaded by my barrister to plead guilty because he said if I didn't I would go to jail.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:And by that time my head was completely shot. I didn't know whether Doug would still be here when I got out, because I wasn't then understanding how bad his illness was. I didn't know, if I went into prison, whether I could physically cope with it and whether I would come out.
Speaker 1:What would the sentence have been?
Speaker 2:Three to five years. So I plead guilty to something I didn't do, and that in itself was terrifying.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 2:I can't remember a lot of what went on in court other than the fact that I've been asked to go to Syrancester Crown Court. So I went there. When I got there, the court was closed. There was police outside, there were other people that were waiting to go in for different court cases, only to be told that my case had been changed to Bluster Crown Court. Now my barrister told me, as we were in Syrancester, there were no cells there, so the chances were that I was not going to go to prison. When they said it had been moved to Gloucester Crown Court and I had 40 minutes to get there or I would be held in contempt of court.
Speaker 2:Honestly, it was like a Bert Reynolds movie. We were all coming back down the hill towards Gloucester.
Speaker 1:Does this give you PTSD when you're talking about your story?
Speaker 2:Not anymore. I've had a lot of counselling and I can now separate the emotion from the anger and what happened, so it's the only way that I've stayed sane, to be honest. So I've finally got to the court. The rest of it really is really hazy, and I only know what was said by reading it in the next day's local papers, because I can't remember it. The only thing I can remember from being in the court is hearing my mum and my dad and my son, who were up in the gallery, sob and sigh when the judge said he wasn't going to send me for a custodial sentence.
Speaker 1:My goodness.
Speaker 2:And that's really the only thing that I remember from that. I was told afterwards that a lot of people from the locality of my post office had sent letters in to the judge.
Speaker 1:I read that and it says over 50 people wrote a character reference for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was quite humbling. That's amazing Because you don't realise how much what you do means to other people until something like that happens and you know the locality. There was only a couple of people that weren't supportive to me. My family were fantastic. My core of friends were really great. Some others backed away.
Speaker 2:I used to work for John's Ambulance as a volunteer and go out and ban the rambulance isn't that for the charity thing for the local county? I got a recorded letter from them to say my membership was cancelled and would I no longer fraternise with any of the other members because they didn't want to be brought into disrepute. Now, that really, really stank. That was probably worse than a lot of other things that happened because I counted St John. As you know, I really loved doing it. I really loved helping people learn how to do first aid and things like that and banning ambulances for the local area and that was hard. That was hard and all of those people that I counted as friends that I worked with week after week after week there I think there was two that kept in contact with me.
Speaker 1:So you must have felt like you were just losing everything in your world.
Speaker 2:I really thought I was losing plump. Yeah, I got 150 hours of community service, most of which was spent at Prickness Abbey, and I worked a lot there in the walled garden and I actually quite enjoyed that. I really did. We painted the inside of a church, we cleaned up a local playground, which was quite nice, and we did some work on the local Stride Canal, which wasn't so nice, because once you're out there in an orange jacket, they know exactly why you're there. People used to line up on the bridge and spit at you as you were working down on the canal, so that wasn't very pleasant.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:But the Prickness Abbey I really enjoyed. After that my mental health got steadily worse and I felt I'd let my family down and that was really really hard to deal with.
Speaker 1:Did you go on medication for that?
Speaker 2:I hadn't done. What I did do was buy a lot of paracetamol and I went to a local place called Cleave Hill, my thinking place. I'd go up there and walk and think I took a bottle of water and all these tablets in my pocket and I was going to end it all. Because I thought I was a burden to my family, I bought them into distribute. The best thing for me was to not be there anymore, and that's how, how shocked my head was. It was completely gone. I'd taken my phone up with me, I'd driven my car up, I hadn't really thought anything through and then my phone went and I answered it and it was Joe Hamilton and she was portrayed in the drama and she told me I wasn't the only one.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:There were lots of other people and explained to me what had happened to her and what had happened to others. And two hours later I was back at my car hanging up the phone from her and I hadn't taken any tablets. And I went home and told my husband that we weren't the only ones and I'd been invited to go to a meeting. I then went to the doctors, got some help with some medication and that it was a hard time. That was so good.
Speaker 2:When I got to that first meeting and as if you've watched the drama I was in that circle where we were telling each other what had happened to each other. None of us could believe that there were that many people in the room and every single time I went back to a meeting there were more people and then there were more and we couldn't sit in a circle anymore. We had to have lines all the way down the village hall and it was better knowing that there were other people out there, because we all exchanged phone numbers, we had a WhatsApp group, we could talk to one another, we could understand more that they were actually trying to separate us by making us feel that we were the only people this happened to.
Speaker 1:How did you feel when you watched the series?
Speaker 2:Well, it was quite strange because when you're trying to explain to somebody what's happened and that it was an IT problem, people shut off their computers. They don't want to know anything. But by watching the drama, I think it brought the human and the emotional stress that we were all under onto the screen, and the English public have really, really rallied around us.
Speaker 1:They have, they've gone into outrage. It's been amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, They've been so, so affected by it, the messages and things that I've sent to me. You know I didn't realise it was this bad. You know I didn't realise that this had happened to you. I've just watched the first one and I feel sick. I can't understand how you could have possibly gotten through that.
Speaker 1:I watched it in the evening and I couldn't sleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a very, very powerful piece of drama. It really was. There's a play out there, in fact, by a gentleman called Lance, but I went to the play last year because he was so enraged by what had happened to us. He wrote a parody. Sure, a lot of the supposed masters that went to watch it, not quite understanding what a parody was I'm not a great theatre goer. The first five minutes that I watched it I thought this guy really doesn't understand what's happened to us, sure. And then, as we, as it went on, we realised what he was doing with the play. It was really powerful. So Lance was actually the first one to put this on the map in a drama sense. But the TV drama has definitely lit the touch paper is helping us not only with the government in helping us hopefully get our compensation, because, although my conviction was overturned in the first cohort of 39 that went to the appeal court in London in 2021, I still haven't had my full compensation yet.
Speaker 1:And you say compensation, but it's actually your own money as well. Yeah, in fact, they stole from you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's financial redress. They have to put us back in the position we were, or we would have been, had this not have happened to us. So basically, they're paying us for what we would have had, so that, as far as I'm concerned, that's, that's not compensation.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:There is a thing called non-procurement losses, which is what it's done to us. The fact that they prosecuted us maliciously because there was no reason for them to to actually prosecute us. Yeah, it it. It was huge Again that the non-procurement losses for malicious prosecution my loss of public standing, my health. The payment that I have received for that so far is less than a third of what Nick Reed earned as a bonus last year alone.
Speaker 1:When they speak about the 75,000 compensation. Where do they get that figure from?
Speaker 2:Well, with most things that the post office do, it's, it's picked out of the ether there. And you know, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm one of the luckier ones in the fact that I if you can say that I was convicted. There are three different, well, in fact, four different payment schemes. There's the horizon shortfall scheme, which is for people who are still working within the post office but have had to pay money's back that that weren't owed. There is the scheme that I'm in, which is convicted, so postmasters. And then there's the rest, of the GLO 555. Now, I was originally a GLO 555, but because I was convicted, I was moved out of that compensation group. What they've done with the convicted ones is they've offered us a flat rate of 600,000 pounds and they think that's enough. Well, you know a few people have taken it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Because their losses were less than that, but they've managed to walk away with 600,000, which is very, very nice Is there a price you can put on?
Speaker 1:what would make things right for you?
Speaker 2:No, no amount of money in this world will ever make up for what they did to us ever.
Speaker 1:And of course we didn't. We didn't mention. I hope you don't mind me bringing it up, but your son passed away. He did In the middle of all of that.
Speaker 2:He did. He was with me at the court. He had an accident in 2014. And we lost him. My dad also passed away, so he didn't know that my conviction had been quashed. My mum did, but unfortunately we lost her last week.
Speaker 1:So that's hard.
Speaker 2:How did you deal?
Speaker 1:with all of that, because that was so much, there was so much extra stress that was just brought on to you outside of just what was going on from that situation.
Speaker 2:You have to cope with it. You know you have to. You've got, you've got no choice. It will never, ever, never, ever go away or never ever be better. But you do, as grief is you learn to cope with those people not being there, not right.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:You know, I often think if we hadn't had to move in with our son. Woody have gone travelling and Woody have had an accident.
Speaker 2:You feel that guilt that's still whizzing round in your head all the time. To survive, you know, I've still got other children, I've still got other members of my family. I mean, it would be nice to not have to fight for every little increment of what they're paying us in redress. But that's not how it's been. You know it's been right. Prove it, prove that you lost this, prove that you've lost that, Prove that. So you know, you almost feel as though you're being a criminal again and you say to them you know, I'm not asking for the world, I'm just asking for what you owe me to have to fight for that all over again. And then they say well, we have to be careful because this is public money. You know, and it's another reason why, from the start of this, if the post office hadn't been investigator, judge, jury, you know, to put us in front of a court, because obviously the police were never involved, we were privately prosecuted Because the post office can do that here in this country can't.
Speaker 2:They could. They say now that they can't do that anymore. Okay, but because of a, I think, two or three hundred year old Lauren Edict, because they were of the crown, because it was the Royal Mail on the Royal Post of it, they had that ability to investigate, prosecute and put us before the court. It was a complete mess up.
Speaker 1:Has the conversation changed with them at any point recently? Are they starting to be supportive in any way, or are they still standing at their ground?
Speaker 2:They're arrogant. I feel that a lot of the top brass there still believe we've got away with something and we're lucky to be getting money. There's been some, some audio tapes that have come out recently that you know. They're still calling us thieves and people that, when I can use the post office's money for other things and things like that, which is very derogatory and it's you know, it's been proven again and again and again that we did nothing wrong but still they treat us as though we have. We've got to put that down to successive governments that haven't listened to us, to the civil servants that worked in between the post office and the government that still treated us as though we were in the wrong, would not listen, just as the programme said. I mean, I'm looking forward to a sequel to the drama because that only took us up to 2021.
Speaker 2:You know, so much more has come out now and so much more.
Speaker 1:How did you feel with handing in her CBE?
Speaker 2:Paula Venals. I would have preferred it to be stripped from her. Somebody did say not so long ago that perhaps she should keep it, because every time she looked at it she would feel guilty. I don't think that woman's got a conscience, so I can't understand how she would feel guilty.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask who thinks she feels guilty.
Speaker 2:yeah, Well, the fact that it's gone on so long, despite so many of us writing to the Honours Board and asking it to be taken away from her, and her still hanging on for dear life to it, that really meant something to her. Having that CBE, her handing it back in doesn't seem punishment enough. It would have been better, I think, if it had been removed from her, because I think that might have actually made a chink in her armour somewhere. In the TV drama she came across, looking at her sometimes as if she was a little bit sorry for what she'd done. No way, that woman is a block of ice, have you?
Speaker 1:gone to all of the trials.
Speaker 2:I haven't gone to all of them. I went up to when the GLO trials were on. I went up to both of those a couple of times but it's so costly to get into London by train and then taxi across town to the different courts. Obviously, I went up for my appeal and I've been up to the inquiry quite a few times.
Speaker 1:I read that there was one point that you went to the inquiry that you almost couldn't step foot inside and somebody had to give you a note.
Speaker 2:That was when we were in the court with Judge Fraser. I'd gone for the first time to watch and it was the Bambodin guardwoman who was giving evidence. I was actually in court when she lied and she got caught out. That was quite something. But no, when we got to the court door I couldn't go in. I just physically stopped and I could not go over that door. Joe got hold of me one side and Jackie got hold of me the other side and they marched me through the door. Once I was over the threshold, it was fine and I could carry on, but trying to step into that court through the door, even into the reception area, I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. It was weird.
Speaker 1:There is kind of a nice turn to this story because you found art.
Speaker 2:I did. Yes, one of the things that our local health service were doing was for depression. They sent you to do some art. I used to paint, but after my son died I couldn't paint anymore. I thought I'd go and try mosaics. I went and I made a kingfisher. The lady was teaching the class said oh, you should be teaching this this better than I can do. Okay, I now make mosaics from stained glass, cut them, make them and do things. I love it.
Speaker 1:I saw a photo of one of your pieces of your son.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I did a portrait of him. I still haven't finished it, because it's really difficult some days to have him staring back at me whilst I'm trying to finish it, but I will finish it, I will.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, thank you. What would be the light at the end of this tunnel, if there was any light at all?
Speaker 2:Not to just have financial redress but to have proper compensation. I'm not asking for the world. I just want to be able to live my life without worrying anymore. Help my children, because they've been through this just as much as I have, of course, to help them not to have to worry anymore too Not asking them not to have to work or anything like that, but just take the edge off the way the world is at the moment. That will be nice. I don't think that's going to happen, but it will be nice For those people that investigated us and got a bonus every time they managed to prosecute somebody and got many back rather than investigate properly as to what was going on, because I've always said, right from the beginning, that the horizon system was a piece of technology.
Speaker 2:People run that technology. People decided to lie about what was happening. People took us to court, people investigated us, people ruined our lives. They were all within successive governments, civil service, the post office, fujitsu who are now starting to actually admit what they've done, which is really good. Those people to be found wanting and have to take their punishment for what they've done to us. What I would say is please don't boycott your post offices, because those postmasters that are out there running those post offices now have put their savings into it, have put their everything into running those businesses. It's important that their lives aren't destroyed because of this as well. So still, please use your post office. It's not to support those guys up in the offices and the board and everything that did this to us. It's to support the other postmasters that are out there working hard in their communities and that's important.
Speaker 1:It still is. It's the heart of a community, isn't it it?
Speaker 2:still is and the only reason that the post office could list in many of their interviews and etc. That the post office is a trusted brand is because of those postmasters that are out there serving their communities and that shouldn't be lost. It may be that they start to be called community hubs rather than the post office. All those people that did know and they did know what was going on, I find wanting, and perhaps if we can't convict them that they lose their jobs and they feel a little bit of what we felt every day.
Speaker 1:I'm not a religious.
Speaker 2:I don't want revenge, I just want justice. It seems that justice is a very, very hard thing to get.
Speaker 1:Definitely is what was the last bit of communication you've had from the post office?
Speaker 2:The last communication that I physically had from the post office was a letter of an apology. That was a photocopied printout. The person that signed it, peter Parker, couldn't even be bothered to sign my name correctly, even though it was printed above it. He couldn't even be bothered to do that.
Speaker 1:That's how Sure, there's nothing there no For the people who did commit suicide, because people did commit suicide, they couldn't handle this. How are their families being taken care of?
Speaker 2:I only know of the one that was portrayed in the drama. They weren't really taken care of. They were silenced into taking money because they were absolutely desperate and they still had families to support. Now, luckily, they are still now able to get more compensation from them. The post office were very devious in the way that they handled Martin's loss. It was just horrendous the way they did what they did to her.
Speaker 1:As a group, you guys are sticking together and you're not letting this go, but you're very supportive of one another and I think that gives a lot of strength, even those that have already the whole four, that have got their compensation.
Speaker 2:there's some that have taken the 600, I think, but in a lot of cases that's out of desperation because they haven't got the time left anymore. We're all getting older every day, even when I've got my compensation. I will fight for those that haven't got it.
Speaker 1:You're definitely a strong soul.
Speaker 2:I've had to be.
Speaker 1:You definitely are a great example of being a strong person. Thank you, persevering through.
Speaker 2:Thank you. We need to get this. It's finished for everybody. We've now found out that previous to the horizon system, there was another trial for a different computer system. People were found guilty of theft from that system as well. We've now got to start fighting for them because we didn't know anything about them. It starts all over again. We need to make sure that every single person that has been affected by this can draw line under it and find compensation and find peace of mind.
Speaker 1:Anality as well, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we need to make sure that happens for everybody, of course, everybody. Those that have gotten to the stage where they've got that, every single one of us will fight for the rest, until they've got it, we have to. Nobody is to be left behind.
Speaker 1:That's right. Thank you very much, wendy. It's been enlightening to speak with you. I definitely wish you all the best. We'll be following the story, as I'm sure you have the backing of the whole country, if not many, many, many countries. Yes, they'll be paying close attention to this. I wish you all the best. Thank you very much. Thank you.