Post Office scandal: Blackpool sub-postmaster's secret shame

Peter Collins did not want his family to see what he had lived through

A former sub-postmaster only told his family he was involved in the Horizon scandal after a TV drama about it was aired - because he was too embarrassed.

Peter Collins ran the post office in Grange Park, Blackpool, for 34 years, before retiring in 2017.

He said he had to pay out £19,000 of his own money to make up a shortfall due to the faulty Horizon IT system.

The scandal saw 700 sub-postmasters prosecuted from 1999 to 2015, with some going to prison.

The issue was actually the result of faulty software in the Post Office's centralised computer accounting system, called Horizon, which wrongly made it look like money was missing from a number of branches.

Had he not been loaned the money, Mr Collins told BBC Radio Lancashire that he would have been in jail.

The ITV drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, focused on the story of sub-postmaster Alan Bates, played by actor Toby Jones, who led and won a legal battle against the company, paving the way for dozens of convictions to be overturned.

Mr Collins said when the drama was aired "it was like going back 20 years" as he re-lived "all the heartache, the shame".

The Horizon scandal saw 700 sub-postmasters prosecuted from 1999 to 2015

"I was embarrassed to say the least," he said, adding he did not want his family to see "what I'd had to live through for many, many years".

Mr Collins recalled "trying to find money to put back into the Post Office".

"It got to the point where my personal savings, business, profits were all being ploughed in," he said.

"I had to keep hiding the fact that I had continual shortages."

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Mr Collins said he knew there was something wrong with the system, but could never prove it.

"There's got to be thousands of sub-postmasters like me who over many years just kept putting money in and I think they should get recompense."

The Post Office said it aimed to get to "the truth of what went wrong" and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak confirmed those previously convicted in England and Wales would be cleared of wrongdoing and compensated under a new law.