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Treatment of Post Office victims is a 'scandal on top of a scandal', former sub-postmistress claims
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May 25, 2025
Former Post Office sub-postmistress Janet Skinner has accused the Government of waging "damn-right war" on victims of the Horizon IT scandal, claiming they are creating a "bigger problem" than the one that already exists.Sir Alan Bates has claimed the Government is "shortchanging victims" in its compensation scheme, calling it a "kangaroo court".FULL STORY HERE.
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0:00
Now, Sir Alan Bates is accusing the post office of short-changing victims in its compensation scheme
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Yes, writing in today's Sunday Times, Mr Bates called it a kangaroo court
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saying he was given a take-it-or-leave-it offer amounting to less than half of his original claim
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Well, it follows a years-long battle to fight for compensation after 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted
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due to a faulty Horizon accounting system making it look like money was missing from their accounts
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Well, joining me now is the former post office sub-mistress, Janet Skinner
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Janet, thanks so much for being with us this afternoon. What exactly is the deal that sub-postmasters and post-mistresses are being offered here
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I think the deal is on an individual basis. So each individual claim is assessed differently
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And I mean, although we were all part of the 555 originally, were also represented by individual legal representation
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But they are offering quite small amounts. And I think what they're also doing is
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especially with my case individually, I received 14 pages of questions to answer Right So it almost as if they accepted that what they had done in the past was wrong but are now making you work even more in order to get any
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sort of compensation at all. I mean, that doesn't sound like it's a particular form of compensation
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when they're making you fill out these onerous forms. I mean, do tell us a bit about your own
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personal case here. How much did the post office, did the government, frankly, go after you
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originally? Well, mine, I mean, 59,000 mine back in 2006. I was imprisoned in 2007. I was looking
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at imprisonment again in 2008. I became ill 10 days after the case had finished, had concluded
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and I ended up paralysed from the neck down. I was actually told I would never walk again
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It's just an ongoing process. It's not, this isn't full and fair address schemes
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This is just a literally damn right war against each individual person
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And the questions that they're actual issuing to each individual claimant is a reduction
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It's how much they can reduce that claim by and how much money they can save for themselves
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No I mean it does sound like an incredibly stressful period after the amount of torment and stress that you and so many other sub and sub would have been through
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Yeah, I mean, I have to say, Tom, what they're doing is people think that they've accepted some form of accountability and they actually haven't
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haven't, or else they wouldn't be treating the victims the way that they are. They are victimising
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victims that have already gone through an immense amount of pressure, stress, relationships
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deaths, and all they're doing is creating an even bigger problem. So you're going to end up with a
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scandal on top of a scandal. Janet, I just wonder, obviously what the government is trying to do here
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is to individualise the payments to each individual sub-postmistress or sub-postmaster. In your case, you ended up in prison, tens of thousands of pounds that they were claiming
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There are some, of course, who did not go to prison, who paid back money, who got into debt. Every case, I suppose, is different
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Would the government be arguing that the form they're sending out is to try and give different amounts to different people
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because, of course, some people will have suffered more and some people will have suffered less
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I suppose it would be fair to have individualised compensation claims It fair to have individual and each individual case has to be assessed individually because like you say there is some people that haven suffered anywhere near others but there
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people whose claims, it's not an actual form that they send you out to actually fill in
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It's what it is. Your case is built by your legal team, by assessors, accounting, psychology reports
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I mean, for me, I've had five medical reports. It's taken them two years to actually say that what happened to me physically
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was a result of stress caused by what they did. Two years of fighting that for them to then turn around and say
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There you go, there's 14 pages of questions I need you to answer. The government are well aware, and there was a very strong advocate
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the Labour government, before they took power, and it seems that since they've been in power
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they've not assisted us in any way. I think a lot of people at home will be frankly shocked
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that after all the media ferrari, after everything that happened, people still are waiting for that compensation
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Janet Skinner, thanks so much for talking to us, And I really do hope that you get the compensation you so clearly deserve much, much faster than the process is currently moving at
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