Falsely jailed Derbyshire postmaster 'still embarrassed'

Harjinder Butoy said "somebody needs to be prosecuted" for what happened to him and other victims of the scandal

An ex sub-postmaster who was jailed after being wrongfully convicted of stealing £208,000 says every day behind bars he thought "I should not be here".

Harjinder Butoy, of Derbyshire, served an 18-month term, prompting his Post Office branch to be shut down.

Mr Butoy, who says his life was destroyed, said "somebody needs to be prosecuted".

The Post Office said it was "acutely aware of the human cost... and are doing all we can to right the wrongs".

A total of 736 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 based on information from Horizon, a computer system that erroneously indicated money was missing from branch accounts.

Mr Butoy's conviction was finally overturned by the Court of Appeal in April 2021

Mr Butoy, who ran the post office in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, with his wife for five years, said when he was in jail "all I kept thinking was, 'how I am going to clear my name?'"

He said: "I used to wake up every day in prison thinking, 'what am I doing here? I shouldn't be here'.

"I've always said it, somebody needs to be prosecuted - take their livelihood away, the way they took it from us.

"I am very angry about it. They destroyed me. I have nothing left. They even made me go bankrupt. They knew there were problems with Horizon but they kept hiding it from everybody.

"I have lost all my confidence... I still feel embarrassed about it even though I have cleared my name. I shouldn't have been in this situation in the first place. I wake up every day thinking about it."

The scandal has been brought into the spotlight recently by the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office

Mr Butoy, from Chesterfield, was sentenced to three years and three months in prison after his conviction for 11 counts of theft in 2007, but served 18 months before he was released.

His conviction was finally overturned by the Court of Appeal in April 2021.

The Metropolitan Police is investigating the Post Office over potential fraud offences arising from the prosecutions.

A public inquiry began in February 2021, with victims still seeking appropriate redress and accountability.

The scandal has been brought into the spotlight recently by the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the government will bring in a new law to "swiftly exonerate and compensate victims" of the scandal.

Mr Butoy added: "The ITV drama is amazing. I can't believe it has taken the ITV drama to come out for the government to make a move and do all the things they were saying."

Mr Sunak also announced on Wednesday that the 555 former postmasters who brought a group lawsuit will be offered an upfront payment of £75,000.

But Mr Butoy said: "The compensation is nowhere near enough. It is a bit disgusting what the government is doing."

A Post Office spokesperson said: "We fully share the aims of the current public inquiry, set up to establish what went wrong in the past and the accountability for it.

"Both Post Office and government are committed to providing full, fair and final compensation for the people affected.

"To date, offers of compensation totalling more than £138m have been made to around 2,700 postmasters, the majority of which have been agreed and paid."