'Countless' secret victims of Post Office scandal in Scotland who 'buried' trauma

dailyrecord.co.uk:

There are “countless” secret victims of the Post Office’s Horizon scandal in Scotland who “buried” their trauma, a campaigning Scots MP said yesterday.MP Marion Fellows – who lead the fight for hundreds of wrongly-convicted sub-postmasters long before a TV drama sparked public outrage, said an untold number of Scots plugged the faulty IT system’s shortfalls out of their own pockets – in some cases concealing the truth from their own families.The SNP politician wants these victims, who are only now revealing their stories, to be properly compensated for the hardship they suffered.Fellows, who has chaired the all-party parliamentary group on Post Offices for more than three years, said: “I think there are far more people.

So many people did not get prosecuted but they handed over money and didn’t tell anyone because they’ve been so ashamed.“These postmasters were working with the most elderly, most vulnerable people in their communities and people trusted them.

They felt if people heard they had shortfalls that trust would be eroded.“People buried this. If you have been through a trauma you don’t want to pick at the scab.“People have paid the money, kept it to themselves and then many of them have left the Post Office altogether because they couldn’t continue and it broke their hearts.

I have appealed for more people to come forward.”.More than 700 sub-postmaters were prosecuted across the UK, including up to 100 in Scotland, for theft and false accounting between 2000 and 2014 as a result of the flawed accounting system.Fellows has prioritised the fight for sub-postmasters since she was elected in 2015 and called on the UK Government in 2020 to launch a public inquiry.Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by