'I just sat down crying and said, it's finished'

Gail Ward was wrongly convicted of stealing from the Post Office

A former sub-postmistress, awarded compensation years after being falsely accused of stealing from the Post Office, has said she thought the case "would never end."

Gail Ward, who ran a branch in Wells, Somerset, was convicted in 2007 of false accounting because of the Post Office's faulty Horizon IT system.

Her name was cleared by the Court of Appeal in April 2021, but Mrs Ward was left waiting for financial compensation for many years until finally receiving it in April and using the money to buy a home.

"I can put it to bed now. Yeah, I'm happy, totally happy, which I haven't been for a long, long time," she told the BBC.

"Our solicitor phoned and said it might be an idea for me to sit down and Kerry, my daughter, was saying, 'what's the matter, what's wrong?'

"I just sat down crying and said, 'it's all over. It's finished'.

"It's a weight lifted off your shoulders when you're not worrying week in, week out, what bills are going to drop on the doorstep," she said.

Mrs Ward ran a post office in Wells, Somerset for several years

Mrs Ward had run the Post Office in Priory Road, Wells for several years when the faulty software started recording shortfalls in 2006.

The day investigators came into her shop on 11 January 2007 is seared into her memory, along with the day she appeared in the dock.

"The solicitor phoned and was saying, as I got ready for court, don't forget to bring a bag with you with some personal items in it. I said, 'why?' and she said, 'well in case you're not coming home'.

"I had a 13-year-old son.

"He went to school that morning not knowing if both his parents would be there when he came home," she said.

'They took our future'

Despite paying back the £12,070 she was told she owed the Post Office, Mrs Ward was still prosecuted and ordered to carry out 150 hours of community service.

"It was horrendous, because you weren't believed. You could say (you were innocent) a million times and they wouldn't believe you.

"They (the Post Office) knew; they knew they were doing it."

Mrs Ward, and her husband Mark, lost everything they owned after her prosecution.

Speaking to the BBC in January, exactly 17 years after her conviction, Mrs Ward said it had left a "big black hole" in their lives.

"The only shining light is family," she said.

"We lost our business, our home, my self-respect, my standing in the community.

"Not only did they (the Post Office) take away the present, but also our future."

Mrs Ward and her husband recently moved into their own home after receiving compensation

After years of renting, Mrs Ward and her husband were able to move into their own home three weeks ago after receiving compensation.

"It was like winning the lottery," she said.

"When you walk in and there's this totally empty building and you're thinking, this is ours. It's a fantastic feeling to know that we are secure.

"I still think someone's going to knock on the door and say, 'can we have the keys back, it's not yours.'

"I'm sure that will eventually fade.

"It was only after everybody had gone and it was only Mark and me here and we opened a bottle of wine and just sort of went, 'wow, yeah, we're home'.

Inquiry under way

More than 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted for stealing because of incorrect information from a computer system called Horizon.

It has been called the UK's most widespread miscarriage of justice.

Many sub-postmasters went to prison for false accounting and theft, and many were financially ruined.

The Metropolitan Police is investigating the Post Office over potential fraud offences and the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry is currently under way to investigate the scandal.

In 2017, a group of 555 sub-postmasters took legal action against the Post Office, which agreed to pay them £58m in compensation

Apology 'not enough'

A Post Office spokesperson said: “We are deeply sorry for the pain which has been suffered by so many people, their families and friends throughout the Horizon IT scandal.

"We know an apology from Post Office is not enough on its own and that is why we strongly supported the Government’s efforts to speed up the exoneration of people with wrongful convictions.

"Together with Government, we are working as fast as we can to pay financial redress to those affected; recognising that some people have been waiting for many years for justice and want to move on with their lives.”

Surviving the Post Office

The stories of wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters will be told in BBC One documentary Surviving the Post Office.

Actor Will Mellor, a star of the TV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, travelled around the country to meet some of those caught up in the scandal.

It will be shown on BBC 1 on Monday at 20:30 BST and is already available on iPlayer.

A five-episode BBC Sounds podcast, also called Surviving the Post Office, will be available from Monday.