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The village shop and Post Office

had come up for sale.

Someone suggested that I would be the perfect person

to take it over.

I started my first job as a postman back in 1965,

and in 1994, I took over the Post Office.

I passed my interview so, yeah, I was given the position.

And everything was perfect.

We had a group of pensioners

who would come in to get their pension every week.

Very much part of a community.

- 28p please, love. - How much?

You do get to know your locals.

We'd have a good banter,

a good laugh with all the customers.

It was really good.

You're not only their Postmaster,

you were also an adviser to people.

Two?

It was lovely, you felt like you were

actually the heart of the village.

- Morning, with you in a minute. - No rush.

It was idyllic.

I felt that I'd managed to get myself a good position.

As a Postmistress, it is not easy.

The idea was it would be my retirement business.

I thought I was gonna spend the rest of my life there.

But I didn't know what was ahead of me.

I went through hell.

It was diabolical.

Something had to be done about it.

Look, Alan!

Look what we did, look what you did!

Should the Post Office bosses go to prison, too?

No. No, no.

Hit them in their pockets.

Hit them in their pockets.

That's what you want to do.

That's... that's what's going to hurt them.

This is the story of a saga that began nearly 25 years ago.

We were not mad, were we?

Dealing with the Post Office has been more difficult

than dealing with the mafia.

It's like fighting a steam roller.

A group of Subpostmasters from all over the UK

fought to expose one of the widest

miscarriages of justice in British legal history.

We want answers now,

to know who's actually done this to so many people,

and why.

There begins the long chain of accounting,

every ha'penny of every transaction accounted for.

The Post Office was established in 1660.

And had always used a paper and pen to balance the books.

But in 1999, management introduced

something completely new.

A computer system called Horizon.

It was the biggest IT rollout in Europe.

The Post Office connected 40 thousand terminals

across the country to one central hub.

An engineer arrived.

He screwed it on the desk and I asked him what it was

and he goes, "That's Horizon."

It's going live shortly, you'll hear all about it.

"Great," I was really enthusiastic.

I'd been involved in developing bespoke software packages

where I'd worked before, and I was all for it.

Basically, I never had a problem balancing it

'til that was installed.

And then a couple of months after that

I had a very big shortfall at the end of the week.

It said I was minus two thousand pounds.

Just overnight, eleven thousand pounds

of stamps had gone missing.

I suddenly found I had 6,000 pound shortfall

and I couldn't understand where that had gone.

That was a ridiculous amount.

There was no way of going back and checking stuff,

like you did with the paper,

cause once you pressed that button it had gone.

I rang the help desk,

and they told me to do various things,

which doubled the shortfall to minus 4,000 pounds.

When I rang the helpline, I was told that there was

nobody else having these problems.

Oh, yes, the helpline was telling you,

"Nobody else has got a problem,"

"You're the only one,"

"You're the only one this is happening to."

"You're the only one,"

that's what they kept saying.

Then I started feeling like I was going mad.

I knew I wasn't computer-literate,

but I wasn't stupid either.

In the end, you were totally confused,

and nothing was done.

Under the terms of their contracts,

the 20,000 Subpostmasters were liable for any shortfall,

whatever the cause.

When it got to about nine thousand pounds short,

I told my parents and my husband, and I said,

"Can we remortgage and put the money in?

Cause I've got no idea what's happening,

but I've got to make it good."

My mum went down to the building society

and drew it out,

an we put it into-- the money into the safe.

Every week I was putting money in myself.

So, we basically went through the cash until it all ran out

to try and make up the balance every day.

It was just up and down, up and down.

It was never, ever right.

And on the end of the month

when we had to do the main balance,

that's when it all used to come out, like...

Where's this money gone?

And the amount kept growing, so I then didn't say anything.

I kept quiet and let it grow to 36 thousand pounds,

terrified of what was gonna happen.

In North Wales,

one Subpostmaster took a different approach.

I had a thousand pounds of shortfall,

and I've never been accepting the figure

that Horizon had thrown up each week.

Because I always felt that if I cleared it,

I was accepting the Horizon system's figures.

And I wasn't prepared to do that.

Eventually they got round to telling me

I had to do it, or else.

And I said, "I won't do it.

Not until I have access to the system."

And eventually they decided just to terminate my contract

without giving me any reason,

and that was it.

So, they walked off with my life's savings,

and they decided to give my Post Office to somebody else.

Horizon just created a whole batch of worry,

not just for me,

but for Subpostmasters all over the country.

I should probably clean at least until I'm 70-ish.

I'm resigned to the fact that I only have the state pension,

and unless I sell my house, I need to keep working.

The Post Office used their sweeping powers

to bring private prosecutions against their own employees.

In 2003, they went after Jo

for the money they said she'd stolen.

I was originally charged with theft,

and I pleaded not guilty, and we almost got to trial,

and they offered up a plea bargain

at the eleventh hour, and said,

"Well if you plead guilty to false accounting,

we'll drop the theft charge,

provided you repay the money."

That meant Jo was forced to borrow

in order to pay back the 36 thousand pounds

the computer said was missing.

I could only raise thirty thousand pounds on the house.

So, we had a village meeting,

and I had to explain to everybody

that I was in trouble in the Post Office,

and someone put their hand up

and they said, cause it was November,

they said, "Well, couldn't Jo

have an early Christmas present?"

And the moment I told them

I thought they were all gonna think I'd stolen money,

and they didn't it was quite the opposite,

and, um, yeah.

It was very humbling.

And literally thousands of pounds

went through the letterbox.

I think we'd reached it in about two weeks.

And, yeah.

- Wow. - My village.

When she went to court, the village showed up again.

I just looked at the judge, and he goes,

"Well, I'm not considering a custodial sentence."

Well, I was literally--

just the tears were streaming down my face.

Jo was sentenced to a twelve month

supervision order.

But there were other people

who's ordeals left an even greater mark.

We had a lot of happy memories here.

Especially when the children used to come off the bus,

we used to look forward to seeing them after school.

They used to come running across this road, you know?

I enjoyed being here as well.

Would've handed it over to them.

A lot of happy memories.

But they all got broken.

In 2009, the Post Office charged Jess

with the theft of five thousand pounds,

and her face was splashed across the local papers.

Family members actually went round to the shops,

local shops, and gathered as many papers as they could.

It was also in one of the Punjabi papers as well.

So, basically everybody read that story

and pointed fingers.

We had somebody come in and spit on the floor as well.

We had car windows broken.

You know, they did try and traumatize us, really.

I would get this feeling that everybody else

is thinking that, "She's a thief."

And thinking about it day and night, day and night.

I just wanted to end my life.

I'm showing you the box.

We can cross quickly.

And this is where the Post Office was.

Noel Thomas became a postman at the age of 17.

In 2005, when his nightmare began,

he'd only ever worked for the Post Office.

Here we are.

We're by the box which was the Post Office

that my wife and I ran for...

36 years.

You know, it was a betrayal, wasn't it?

When we lost this.

At half past seven there was a knock on the door,

and there was a lady and a gentleman in the door,

and said they were Post Office auditors,

and so I let them in, made them a cup of tea,

and told them straightaway

that I was about 52 thousand pounds down,

so all hell let loose.

Noel was arrested,

and questioned at a police station.

She was just, "Where was the money,

where was the money?"

And, "What did you do with it?"

You know, it was really aggressive.

Then the Post Office did to Noel what they did

to many other Subpostmasters,

they offered to drop the theft charge

if he agreed to plead guilty to false accounting.

I remember me telling him, "Will he keep me out of jail?"

And he said yes.

But unfortunately when I went into court,

the judge came to his sentencing words,

and he said "Nine months."

And he sort of paused,

and I waited for a suspended sentence,

but he said "Take him down."

I'd been a counsellor, I'd been a Postmaster,

I'd been a postman, and highly thought of.

All of a sudden it was all taken away from me,

like taking a mat from under your feet,

if you like.

It was bloody horrible.

My journalistic life has been dominated by this.

I mean, it's the biggest story I've worked on.

It's probably the biggest story I'll ever work on.

In 2009, the story hadn't hit the press yet.

Social media was in its infancy.

Even though many Subpostmasters were being prosecuted,

each one of them thought they were the only one.

But that was about to change.

This particular article began because we were

contacted by a Subpostmaster about his problems.

Often when you get contacted by a single person,

it's very hard to stand up a story.

But one of my former colleagues, an alarm bell rang in his head,

and he thought, "I've heard this before."

And I think it was four years earlier,

he'd been contacted by Alan Bates,

who'd had the same problems.

Then they started to build up a picture.

People having the same problems,

people being told the same thing from the Post Office,

which eventually led to them gathering information

about four other Subpostmasters,

and doing this first story.

But we were so worried about legal action,

we didn't actually publish it for a year.

This was the response from the Post Office.

"The Post Office Horizon system is extremely robust.

It is regularly tested and scrutinized,

and we do not have any complaints from Subpostmasters."

That was an outright lie.

We knew of seven postmasters who had complained,

and also we know that computers have problems,

especially complex systems.

Suddenly, Subpostmasters that had problems

were seeing the story and contacting each other,

which then started the campaign.

That's the seven from Computer Weekly,

then there's two that came in via our website.

But where are all the others?

So, we thought, "Let's see if we can get people together.

Let's see how big the problem actually is.

Somewhere central.

- Fenny... - Compton.

We didn't know if anyone was gonna turn up,

but slowly but surely people turned up.

We all sat round, in a circle,

telling our stories.

And you almost felt embarrassed

about having to say,

"Oh I'm Jo, and I've been done

for thirty six thousand pounds.

But I realized, like, oh my god,

we're all exactly the same.

That's when the story's

jigsaws started coming together, if you know what I mean.

And we'd all had our lives completely tipped upside down.

People had been losing houses,

cashing in their pensions,

they'd been borrowing money off of relatives,

marriages were splitting up...

We all looked like we'd been in a war,

and just weary with the stress that we'd been put through,

and the shame of it.

It was diabolical.

But that's when we knew

something had to be done about it.

And that's when we picked Alan Bates as chairman.

That was really the start of everything,

and that's where the JFSA,

Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was born.

It was like a switch got turned,

and the Post Office was the enemy.

They'd gone from this trusted brand to a monster,

and it was like, we are gonna get them.

This is the view I had of him most of the time.

I mean, most mornings this is what he's doing.

And as you can see, he's still in his dressing gown.

For the past twenty years,

Alan and his partner Suzanne

have had their lives dominated by one thing.

The whole of this post office issue

has turned into probably the worst unpaid, full-time

job you can imagine.

I'm gonna do the cat,

and I'll have her sitting down on the carpet here,

looking up at him as if to say,

"Well when are you gonna finish," you know?

"When are you gonna take a break?"

Because you were hearing stories of such distress,

a family in ruin...

So, you couldn't give up working on something like this

because it develops a life of its own.

And it wasn't just me,

other people were chasing their own MPs.

The good thing about being an MP

is if you contact someone

like the chairman of the Post Office

and say I'd like to meet you to talk this through,

they tend to respond.

- Uh, Mrs. Hamilton? - That's me.

James Arbuthnot.

Thank you for coming.

He came out to the shop and met my parents,

and he was just a thoroughly decent guy.

There are two other cases in my constituency alone.

- Wow, really? - It's very odd, isn't it?

I thought, "There's something obviously not right."

And, so, I went to see

the then Chief Executive of the Post Office,

Paula Vennells.

Paula Vennells was hired by the Post Office in 2007.

By 2012, she had worked her way up to the top job,

and used her in-house PR

to highlight her commitment to Subpostmasters.

It was Paula Vennells

who suggested that what we needed

was forensic accountants to go into the allegations.

And we said, "That's exactly what we need."

Who would you recommend?

Ron Warmington runs Second Sight.

I was Head of Investigations for one of the world's

biggest banks for many years.

And now I'm meant to be retired.

The only reason I'm not retired is because of this case.

Ron's investigation was paid for by the Post Office itself.

But obviously we had very serious concerns

that it was going to be a bit of a whitewash.

So Alan and the MPs

brought in their own top forensic accountant.

Kay Linnell flew at me like a tigress.

I don't doubt your paper qualifications,

I have them here in front of me,

but I see nothing to persuade me

that Second Sight is remotely capable

of producing a truly independent report.

Clearly suspecting that either we were hired

to do a whitewash,

or that we'd be hopelessly incompetent.

Probably she thought both.

The involvement with the Post Office

started with Jo Hamilton, my local subpostmistress.

Kay volunteered to help the Subpostmasters.

I had no idea how long it would take,

but I knew we had a room of people

who had lost everything, or were losing everything.

And people were still being prosecuted,

almost on a daily basis.

And I knew we had to do something

to try and stop the tide, or raise the profile.

She clearly was exactly the person we needed.

Having had that meeting with Ron and Ian,

which I suspect they will remember,

I was satisfied they would do an independent job.

Ron's team began their investigation in 2012.

At that time, the Post Office continued

to prosecute Subpostmasters.

Basically, I was told I was going to get

two years in prison.

In the West Midlands, Jess was convinced

a faulty pin pad on her Horizon terminal

had caused the shortfall.

And she pleaded not guilty to theft.

But the case dragged on for three years.

I went to numerous courts, up and down the country.

In Wolverhampton Crown Court,

the judge said, "It was the pin pad."

And the Post Office said

"The pin pad's been taken away for repair."

So, the judge said well,

"If it's gone for repair it was faulty."

That's when it all got thrown out, basically.

By then, the damage had been done.

The stress that we've been through,

the trauma that we've been through,

the lying to, bullied,

it all mounted up, and I ended up in the hospital.

I went to commit suicide.

I even tried to commit suicide in the hospital.

Jess was so ill, the doctors decided

to treat her with electroconvulsive therapy.

All I remember is they used to put this, like,

a helmet type thing on my head.

And the shock waves were going through my brain.

So I had, I think I had fourteen

treatments like that.

After that, I lost all my memory.

I don't remember anything from my childhood.

I couldn't sleep unless I had sleeping tablets.

Put me on numerous medication,

which I'm still on today.

And it's all down to the Post Office.

During Ron's investigation, it became clear

the Post Office had some serious questions to answer.

There were documents which looked extremely suspicious,

very poor investigative processes that were directed

blatantly at simply recovering assets

by trying to get the easiest conviction possible,

which generally was false accounting,

using as a cudgel,

bluffing that they had a theft case.

I'm pretty used to being able to detect crooks.

But when I really dug deeper,

I didn't find any evidence of theft at all.

We didn't know whether the investigation would work,

but the very fact that they

had access to Post Office's data,

erm, seemed quite promising.

And at that time, we did understand

that Post Office did actually want to get to the truth.

I felt we were getting somewhere.

Ha, little did I know

how long the journey was gonna be.

Remote access to the system

was always a huge concern.

And the reason why was it meant

that someone else could be accessing your accounts

on your counter in your Post Office,

and you did not know about it.

When the Post Office rolled out their new computer system,

every subpostmaster's computer

was hard-wired to a central hub.

This was located at the headquarters of the company

who designed and managed Horizon, Fujitsu.

Post Office were quite adamant that no-one else

could ever access the systems

or do anything like this at all.

And that was something that we wanted

Second Sight to prove had occurred,

or how it had occurred.

I went to Fujitsu headquarters with the intention

of helping and looking at the system,

and how we accounted for

bureau de change within branches.

Er, Michael Rudkin to see George Delph.

That was the purpose of my visit.

I arrived, as scheduled,

about ten o'clock in the morning.

- Cheers. - Went into reception.

Mr. Rudkin, George Delph, hi.

Within a few minutes, my chaperone arrived.

I was really taken aback by the number of security doors

that we had to pass through.

I was encouraged to enter into the boiler room by my chaperone.

And in doing so, I then recognized

to the right-hand side of me,

there's two Horizon terminals on this workbench.

One of the guys not happy with my presence

gets up and walks out.

My chaperone said,

"This is my covert operations team

and my covert operations room."

He proceeded to enter into this particular account,

and he started, er, altering figures,

which I said to him, "Is this real-time?"

He says, "Look, I'll just prove it."

He says, "I'll alter the Euro figures

in this branch's accounts."

You're inside some subpostmaster's Horizon,

and he doesn't know?

In total disbelief, I said,

"Are you sure you can alter these figures in real time?"

And he said, "Yes."

I said, "Well, for your information..."

I've been telling my members for years,

no-one else has access to their branch accounts.

"And here you are proving that you've got remote access."

At which there was an immediate

look of disdain on his face,

and then ushered me out,

and more or less thrown out as though I was...

..a thief.

I said to Michael, "Your story is really, really interesting.

But Post Office, of course,

will ask for evidence to support what you're saying.

So we need to find the visitors book."

The so-called visitors book that I signed,

ironically, is the only visitors book that's disappeared.

"So, Michael, you need to have a look

through your email records to see if you can find

the invitation that came through to you,

so get to it, Michael, I need it, and I need it quickly.

I had a telephone conversation with Ron.

I said, "I have the evidence.

Are you in front of your computer?"

He said, "Yes."

I said, "Well, I'm pressing send now." I did.

The reply came back.

"Oh, my effing good God.

They are now going to become a hostage to fortune."

The day after Michael's visit to Fujitsu,

Post Office officials paid him a visit.

What come as an even greater shock

was the orders that then came into my bedroom at 8:30

that following morning, sat on the edge of my bed, and said,

"You've got a £44,000 shortage in your office."

My wife, Susan, who's managing the branch,

ended up being convicted

with 300 hours community service,

electronically tagged for six months.

She had to live through and endure that experience.

In 2013, Second Sight published their initial findings

With Ron's report in the public domain,

Post Office management changed their approach.

Paula Vennells rang me up to say,

"What we're proposing is a mediation scheme

between the subpostmasters and the Post Office,

with a senior judge as the mediator.

And that will be able to get to the bottom of all these cases."

And I said, "Well, that sounds right and proper.

Let's go ahead with that."

Alan put forward 150 cases for the new scheme.

The whole process was only meant to take

X amount of months in total.

It was running into years.

You're supposed to go to mediation

with a willingness to settle,

but it appeared that the Post Office was sending

two lawyers who turned up and said,

"You're out of time to make a claim,

it's over six years old, forge

I think they were actually uncovering the real truth

of what had been going on,

and they didn't want to come forward with it.

The Post Office has spent public money on a mediation scheme

which they themselves have set out to sabotage.

In Westminster, James Arbuthnot

was working hard to keep the case in the public eye.

And they've broken their word to Members of Parliament

in so many different respects that it is frankly bewildering.

If you could just introduce yourself

for voice transcription purposes.

Paula Vennells, Chief Executive of Post Office.

And then Paula was called in to face MPs.

People do not like appearing in front of select committees

because the select committee may get to the bottom of things

that the witnesses may prefer that they didn't.

Before the hearing, Paula Vennells asked colleagues

to help clarify what she should say.

Here we go.

A copy of her email has since come to light.

"Urgent: Accessing Horizon."

"Dear both, your help, please, in prep for the SC,

the select committee hearing."

"Is it possible to access the system remotely?"

"We are told it is."

That's obviously the question she's being warned

she's gonna have to answer.

"What is the true answer?"

"I hope it is that we know this is not possible

and that we are able to explain why that is."

"I need to say no, it is not possible

and that we are sure of this because of xxx."

This is a system that works well,

and it works well for the vast majority of people.

For those it doesn't work for, we are doing our utmost.

I've got Nadhim, and then I've got Brian...

The MPs wanted to know why the Post Office had been obstructive

during Second Sight's investigation.

Paula, why don't you give those files over?

- What's the problem? - Erm, so, I...

I think the point I want to pick up first, if I may...

No, just... No, answer my question first.

Why won't you give Ian Henderson those files? Why?

We have... As far as I'm aware, Mr. Zahawi,

we have shared whatever information

was appropriate on every single--

That's not what Ian Henderson's saying.

It is the first time personally I have heard that.

You're the head of the organization.

Will you provide it, yes or no? Simple answer.

I'm not prepared, on behalf of the Post Office...

Right, I've got my answer, so you won't...

No, you haven't got your answer,

you haven't heard a yes or no.

I'm simply saying that at the moment,

I'm not able to answer your question.

It was pointed out to her time after time

that she was in charge and the decisions were with her.

But it just seemed to wash over her.

Well, this sounds like a shambles to me.

You came in here, opened by saying

the system's working beautifully.

You now realize why you're in front of the committee,

is that right?

The system... The reason... Ian said...

I just couldn't understand why, even after that,

she didn't take things on board and actually be honest

and own up and actually try and resolve it,

which she should've done far earlier.

I'm very sorry that I can't answer that, it's..

When I listened to the evidence from Paula Vennells

I realized what we were gonna be up against,

and just what it looks like.

I have been told that we're providing information.

It looks like it's a massive corporate cover-up.

Then, a few weeks after the select committee hearing,

the Post Office changed their approach again.

Post Office dynamited the mediation working group

and fired everybody.

I think at that stage,

she decided it was preferable

to cover up the injustice

and to allow these subpostmasters

to go to the wall.

And I think that's shocking.

We were growing information, we were growing data.

For more than ten years,

Alan Bates and his team of campaigners

had been carefully gathering evidence bit by bit

against the Post Office.

Because we had those documents,

there was a possibility then of starting some sort of litigation

in the civil courts against the Post Office.

If we could find a legal firm

to take it on board for us.

The headlines this morning.

A report has criticized the Post Office for sacking

or prosecuting subpostmasters

without establishing the cause of cash shortfalls

at their branches.

Driving into work, normal day, into Leeds,

and I heard a BBC radio programme.

If the cash recorded by the computer system

does not match up with the cash

that's actually held at the branch

then they are held responsible for it.

I thought to myself, there may be something

we could do about this to help,

because it didn't sound right, so I contacted Alan Bates.

I explained the case to him,

I showed him the type of evidence

that we had at the time.

And I explained we had no money at all,

but we felt there was a case there.

So I needed to weigh up whether or not

we could raise the necessary litigation funding.

There are specialist funders who are willing to take the risk,

but only if there are enough of you.

Because otherwise we knew that Post Office

would outspend us and we would lose.

The only way that we were

gonna be able to break through this

and uncover it was a full-scale group action.

Group litigation orders are used

when you've got very poor claimants

and they've got enough similarity in their cases

that you can literally fund one case

and solve a lot of people's problems.

It was the only way, and to do that,

we needed a much larger group of postmasters.

How many would you need?

At least 500.

The meeting kicked off a nationwide search

to find subpostmasters

who'd had problems with Horizon.

Eventually, 555 people pursued

a group litigation order against the Post Office.

The case against Post Office was very much to expose

the way individuals had been mistreated in there.

The lack of information that was available from Post Office.

The flaws in the system they'd never owned up to.

The denial that had happened,

the bullying that had gone on.

The abuse of individuals,

the way that they'd raided people's houses.

The way they'd been so high-handed,

God almighty, didn't give a damn,

they're Post Office and they can do what they want--

that's what we wanted exposing.

Alan had found the lawyers, they'd got the funding.

And we were on.

Alan and the Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance

finally took the Post Office to court

to seek financial redress.

Well, I went four days after my mum died.

She'd said to me, "Please don't stop."

And she said, "I'll be with you.

Wherever you are, I'll be with you."

And, erm, yeah, four days later, I went to court.

Among Alan's group of 555 subpostmasters

were people whose lives had been devastated by the Post Office.

Many had been bankrupted, prosecuted or imprisoned.

Gathering enough evidence at the beginning of the case

was challenging because Post Office had the evidence,

which meant we were having to build the case

with one arm tied behind our backs.

But during the case,

the Post Office was forced to disclose evidence

they'd always claimed was irrelevant.

So, what we've got here is a known-error log.

So what this records is the fact that there were

internet problems, network problems,

which were causing the error in the system,

which in turn were messing up the figures

and causing a financial discrepancy.

This particular example showed that

the transaction that had gone wrong,

needed to be manually corrected.

They had teams and teams of people

doing it all day long, year on year.

Quite often in litigation cases,

in court cases, lawyers will say,

"Well, very rarely are we ever gonna find a smoking gun."

These were smoking guns.

Not just one smoking gun, multiple smoking guns,

which prove to us and prove to the court

that there were multiple problems in the system,

there had been from day one when it was installed.

And that was why Post Office lost the court case.

At the end of the court hearings,

Justice Fraser delivered a 330-page judgement

outlining his findings on the Horizon system.

On the day the judgement was handed down,

our side was totally crammed with people.

The other side of the court,

there were just two people.

They knew what was gonna happen,

they knew which way this judgement was going to land,

and it did.

Mr. Justice Fraser's Horizon Issues judgement:

"This approach by the Post Office

has amounted, in reality,

to bare assertions and denials...

..that ignore what has actually occurred.

It amounts to the 21st-century equivalent

of maintaining that the Earth is flat."

Good old Justice Fraser.

The judge said there seemed to be a culture of secrecy

and excessive confidentially within the Post Office.

We couldn't be more happy

with the judgement from the court.

This has been the result of many years' work

to achieve justice for over 550 people.

It was overwhelming,

it was utterly, utterly damning of Post Office

and it just vindicated everything

we'd ever said about them.

The win was one of the best days of my life.

The civil justice system in the UK had got to the truth.

But the win came at huge financial cost.

Although the Post Office agreed

to pay £57.5 million in damages,

after legal costs, the subpostmasters were left

with around £20,000 each.

But the civil court win did enable the subpostmasters

to appeal their criminal convictions.

These subpostmasters have not only

had their convictions quashed,

but they've been exonerated by the Court of Appeal.

I'm not a criminal any more, I'm a victim.

Oh my god!

To date, 93 out of 736 subpostmasters

have had their names cleared.

The sun was shining, and I was free.

- How do you feel now? - Very happy.

At last, you could go home

and tell people you were innocent.

That emotion will...

It was like lifting that big rucksack

with rocks on your back for years,

and getting rid of it.

- Thank you, all, - Let him through, please.

You know, you could just throw it away.

It was such a big, big relief,

'cause the Post Office did a lot of damage, really, to him.

It's something that we couldn't fathom

that was gonna happen to him.

I didn't have this many people at my wedding.

But I'm seeing my dad coming back now,

you know, bit by bit.

So we are really grateful,

you know, that we've had this chance to see that,

'cause not many have.

Yay!

Well done, well done.

We've made it.

God's got me through everything.

I just thought I wanted to bring you here

to show you as well.

I've built myself up.

I've made myself stronger,

and I want everybody to know

that I wasn't a thief.

I didn't rob the Post Office, as they say.

That's what matters to me, my name cleared.

And it needs to be told.

Our stories do need to be out there.

It's not just...

a little group of people, it's hundreds.

Hundreds of people have been through this.

Everybody ready?

A statutory inquiry has been set up

to find out what went wrong.

I know who should be held to account.

I mean, it's the people who have had

a very cushy lifestyle

on vast quantities of money

whilst they've made hundreds, if not thousands,

of individuals suffer

whilst knowing the real truth of what's been going on

and denying the truth to all these individuals.

Those are the people who should be held responsible.