REAL LIFE
CLOSER NEWS REPORT
ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office has sparked a public outcry. Closer speaks to Seema Misra, 48, who was wrongly accused of theft by the Post Office, and sent to prison while pregnant…
Like millions of others across the country, Seema Misra sat down with her husband, Davinder, 52, to watch the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office. But, for her, the show brought back many painful memories. Seema was eight weeks pregnant when she was sentenced to 15 months in prison, accused of stealing money from her employer, the Post Office.
But she wasn’t the only one caught up in the scandal – over 700 postmasters were prosecuted for fraud, theft and false accounting, all due to IT errors. Seema, 48, says, “I couldn’t stop crying. I felt like I was back sitting in a prison cell. It was the most awful time.”
FLAWED
The Horizon accounting system, introduced in January 1999 and built by Fujitsu, was designed to manage financial transactions and accounting processes at Post Office branches.
Sub postmasters, like Seema, were told that it would make their lives easier. Their complaints about the system were ignored and hundreds of innocent people were plunged into a nightmare. For many, it led to financial ruin, others served time in jail and, tragically, four died by taking their own lives.
Former sub postmaster Alan Bates –played by Toby Jones –played a key role in bringing attention to the issues after he lost £65,000. He led a group of sub postmasters in taking legal action against the Post Office, alleging that the Horizon system was flawed and that the Post Office had not adequately addressed their concerns.
In 2019, the High Court in the UK ruled in their favour and found that the Post Office had not acted fairly in its dealings with the sub postmasters and ordered them to pay significant compensation.
Paula Vennells was the chief executive of the Post Office from 2009 to 2019, when the abuses were at their worst. Over a million people signed a petition demanding that Ms Vennells should lose her CBE, which she gave up voluntarily earlier this month.
The inquiry, which has been running since 2020, has now resumed, with former Post Office and Fujitsu employees among those due to be questioned in coming weeks.
For Seema, what happened will haunt her forever. She says, “We took over the running of a village post office in West Byfleet, Surrey, in 2005. I was the sub-postmistress and Davinder oversaw the shop attached to it. Our five-yea-rold son, Aditya, settled quickly into our new home, and I loved chatting to the customers.”
On the first day, a trainer from the Post Office went to observe Seema using the computer system, but when she tried
