Submit Workplace Horizon scandal: Postmistress backed by her village when she was wrongly convicted says ex-CEO Paula Vennells ‘does not appear to have any ethical code’ – and MUST return her CBE

A postmistress who was backed by her village when wrongly convicted of theft within the Submit Workplace Horizon scandal has mentioned ex-CEO Paula Vennells ought to return her CBE. 

Jo Hamilton, 66, was falsely accused of stealing £36,000 from a village store in South Warnborough, Hampshire, and finally pleaded responsible to false accounting in worry of going to jail. 

The mother-of-two and her husband had been pressured to remortgage their home twice, borrow cash from pals and take £6,000 in donations from the village in an effort to pay again what was misplaced. Mrs Hamilton additionally took up a job cleansing individuals’s homes in a determined bid to remain afloat. 

Her conviction was quashed in 2021 when she was discovered to be a sufferer of the Submit Workplace Horizon scandal, the place a defective accounting system led to greater than 700 sub-postmasters being prosecuted. 

Vennells, who was a parish priest earlier than the scandal and served as chief govt officer of the Submit Workplace from 2012 to 2019, has confronted renewed calls this week to be stripped of her CBE. 

Vennells left the Submit Workplace with a CBE for providers to the organisation in addition to to charity – and a £389,000 bonus. 

‘If she’s bought any ethical compass in any respect, she ought to give it again,’ Mrs Hamilton instructed The Instances. ‘I’d give it again earlier than it was taken off me.

‘However despite being a vicar, she does not appear to have any ethical code.’  

The submit workplace carried out about 900 prosecutions between 2000 and 2015, securing 700 convictions for offences together with theft and fraud and sending 236 victims to jail. 

An additional 2,800 managed to flee prosecution however had been requested to pay a refund. 4 individuals dedicated suicide over the scandal whereas others died earlier than their convictions could possibly be reversed. 

‘They’ve made individuals’s lives a distress they usually’ve dedicated crimes. It isn’t simply a pc downside. That is absolute corruption at its worst; state-sponsored corruption,’ Mrs Hamilton mentioned. 

The mom purchased the village store in 2001 and have become the sub-postmaster two years later. 

Her nightmare began when the Horizon system began displaying shortfalls in her accounts in 2003 – at one stage displaying the quantity double earlier than her eyes. 

Assuming it was her fault, Mrs Hamilton didn’t inform her husband what was occurring to her for months. 

‘I all the time thought what it mentioned should be proper as a result of it is a pc and I am a dumb-dumb,’ she mentioned. 

‘I by no means gave it a minute’s thought that the Submit Workplace would try this to me. And you then ring up the helpdesk they usually say: ”Nicely, you’re the just one that is had issues with it.” 

‘I did not need to let anybody down and I genuinely thought all this cash would come again.’ 

When the cash didn’t return, Mrs Hamilton was pressured to inform her husband they usually remortgaged their home, borrowed from pals and maxed out bank cards to repay what was lacking. 

The monetary nightmare saved getting worse, inflicting Mrs Hamilton to endure from pains in her arm and chest. She was finally sacked by the Submit Workplace and charged with stealing £36,000. 

It emerged years later that the Submit Workplace’s personal investigator had discovered no proof of theft.  

‘It is perverting the course of justice. It is my interior rage that is saved me sane: They don’t seem to be going to get away with this,’ she mentioned. 

The sufferer had agreed to plead responsible to a smaller cost of false accounting in 2008, avoiding jail. Beneath this deal she nonetheless needed to pay again the supposedly lacking £36,000. 

Mrs Hamilton was pressured to remortgage once more and the village donated £6,000 to her trigger. 

‘I would not be the place I’m had I not had the love of the group,’ she mentioned. 

Mrs Hamilton began a brand new job cleansing individuals’s homes and have become the faces of a marketing campaign by Alan Bates, a sub-postmaster from north Wales. 

The characters of Mrs Hamilton and Mr Bates each star in a brand new ITV drama titled Mr Bates vs The Submit Workplace. 

Mr Bates known as Mrs Hamilton someday to inform her in regards to the suicide of Martin Griffiths, who was wrongly blamed for a ‘lacking’ £100,000.

‘I can see precisely why he felt like he did,’ mentioned Mrs Hamilton. 

Her mother and father each had strokes whereas she was nonetheless combating to clear her identify, earlier than they died of most cancers. 

One in every of her two grown-up sons, a police officer, for years needed to declare his mom’s conviction each time he modified jobs. 

Mrs Hamilton, who has three grandchildren, was as soon as requested to depart her granddaughter’s faculty whereas making Easter bonnets as a result of she couldn’t be left alone with the kids due to her conviction. 

The mom, who was a beloved and trusted member of her group, mentioned: ‘I would not be the place I’m had I not had the love of my group.’ 

The Submit Workplace reached a £58 million settlement with 555 sub-postmasters

Mr Bates vs the Submit Workplace is on ITV1/ITVX.