I was sent to drug-riddled jail with child killers & lost home in Post Office scandal… compensation will never be enough
JAILED, humiliated and wrongly accused of stealing nearly £60,000 from the Post Office she ran, Janet Skinner had lost it all.
The innocent mum was in a drug-infested prison alongside child killers and lifers — separated from her two kids and penniless, her home lost and her reputation in tatters.
She was among hundreds of Post Office workers wrongly branded thieves and fraudsters over apparent account shortfalls created by faulty computer system Horizon.
Janet was one of 230 former postmasters and postmistresses jailed in one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in Britain’s recent history.
Now the story is pulling in an audience of millions, as a four-part ITV drama leaves viewers distressed and appalled by the scandal.
In Mr Bates vs The Post Office, Toby Jones plays former postmaster and campaigner Alan Bates, who led a successful group action to prove staff were not at fault.
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The Detectorists star is supported by a cast including ex-Coronation Street actresses Julie Hesmondhalgh and Katherine Kelly.
Sitting in her terraced house in Hull, Janet, 52, hopes the big-money drama will reveal the true human impact of the Horizon scandal on staff. And she wants the public to know about the callous way victims were treated by greedy bosses.
Janet’s story has helped form the background to the new mini-series.
She served three months of a nine-month sentence imposed in 2007 over an alleged £59,000 shortfall at her post office in Hull, before she was released on an electronic tag. Her conviction was quashed in April 2021.
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‘I was on suicide watch’
The mum said: “The Post Office ruined my life. My health has gone, I’m disabled and I have to live with the support of benefits. There isn’t a single day I don’t think about what this did to me. You just can’t move on from something like this.”
Janet is also demanding former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells be stripped of her 2019 CBE.
She said: “It should be removed straight away and it shouldn’t stop there. She and all the others at the top benefited and thrived while we suffered, and at such a cost to our lives and families.
“Why is it right that someone like Paula Vennells prospers when so many lives were ruined?
“I hope that with this TV series now reaching so many people, whoever is responsible takes action.
“This has never just been about compensation, it has always been about justice.”
It is a view which resonates with Kevin Hollinrake, the Postal Services minister, who yesterday told ITV: “If I was Paula Vennells, I would seriously consider handing that [CBE] back voluntarily at this point.”
Janet had been working as a postmistress in Bransholme when Horizon was introduced by the Post Office.
It was supposed to help staff balance the books. Instead, the flawed supercomputer wrongly started identifying apparent anomalies in the cash passing over the counters in hundreds of community Post Offices.
Janet, using her own hand-written ledger system, was already suspicious that Horizon was making mistakes when bosses accused her of stealing, took her keys and suspended her from her branch in 2006.
Despite protesting her innocence, she was taken to Hull crown court accused of false accounting and theft.
She claims her lawyer, Karl Turner, now a Labour MP in Hull, advised her to plead guilty in a bid to dodge jail.
“The advice was to admit to it so I could get charges reduced and avoid a jail sentence,” said Janet.
“It was against everything I knew was true, but I followed the advice. That was a terrible mistake.” Standing in the dock at Hull crown court the following year, Janet, then 35, was horrified to be jailed.
She thinks an unfavourable probation report, because she had not apologised or admitted any fault, influenced the judge.
“I was in total shock,” she said. “I can barely remember that day. I couldn’t believe I was going to jail for something I hadn’t done.”
Within hours, Janet found herself in New Hall prison in Wakefield, Yorks — one of the country’s toughest women’s nicks. Rose West, wife of late serial killer Fred West, is among current inmates.
Janet said: “For the first couple of weeks I barely remember it. It was just a blur. I can’t remember a single thing about the day I was sentenced as I must have just gone into shock.
“I was on suicide watch for a couple of weeks. I’d lost everything.” Fighting back tears, Janet admits she was distraught to be apart from daughter Toni, 17, and son Matthew, 14. “My daughter didn’t talk to me,” she said. “She couldn’t face what was happening. I didn’t let them come to see me.
“The memory of their mum being in prison was not something I wanted them to have for the rest of their lives. I knew I had to just get on with it for their sake.
“There were women in there for violent crimes, for life. Drugs were rife. They could get their hands on anything they wanted.”
After several weeks, Janet was moved to another women’s prison, Drake Hall, in Staffordshire.
She said: “I knew I was innocent, but it is tough inside. I remember in the gym a girl said, ‘I know you. You’re that bird from Hull who nicked all that money’. All I could say was that she was wrong.
“The prison officers knew what I was in for. One told me I shouldn’t have been inside.”
Janet was released in April 2007. But her humiliation and ordeal were far from over. She had to wear an ankle tag and abide by a 6pm to 7am curfew for the remainder of her sentence. In a desperate attempt to hide it, she wore boots and trousers and rarely left the house.
Within a year, handcuffed Janet was back in the dock, this time facing a five year stretch for failing to repay “proceeds of crime”.
She had no money, no house and no income. Eventually the charges were set aside. Janet said: “It never seemed to stop. I had no control of my life. You place so much faith in the justice system, but you have no control when it turns against you.
“It was soul destroying. It makes you question everything in life.”
Soon the Horizon scandal started to emerge. Hundreds of former post office workers had been wrongly accused of stealing, with dozens convicted in court and some, like Janet, jailed.
Bates led a campaign to highlight their cases and ex-staff quickly united to overturn convictions in court. After years of campaigning, some 86 of them, including Janet, had convictions quashed.
In February 2022 a public inquiry into the scandal was opened. It is due to continue until late this year. Janet has given evidence. She — and many close friends she found through the case — will keep fighting. Soon after her conviction was quashed, Janet and other victims received a “personal apology” from millionaire Post Office chairman Tim Parker, who quit days before the inquiry began.
Even then the Post Office managed to bodge the apology.
Janet said: “Mine went to the wrong address and I had to pay for it to be redirected. We were told the letter was supposed to be personal, but they were identical, someone had just handwritten in my name. That sums up how much they care — which is not one bit.
“They don’t accept liability or responsibility. They just care about themselves, their money and their reputations.”
It emerged last year that some Post Office chiefs got big bonuses for taking part in the inquiry. Boss Nick Read later agreed to pay his back. Janet is still in a legal fight for compensation, yet says money cannot make up for what the Post Office did to victims.
She now hopes the TV drama will highlight the huge personal impact on those who suffered because of Horizon.
“I’m always surprised by how many people don’t know about this,” she says. “This is all about justice. I just hope it reflects how many people suffered because of what happened. It’s not about one person.
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“Computer systems don’t send people to prison. The buck needs to stop with people at the top.”
- Mr Bates Vs The Post Office concludes Thursday on ITV from 9pm.
POST OFFICE SCANDAL IN NUMBERS
- 3,500 subpostmasters accused of theft, fraud and false accounting by the Post Office from 2000 to 2015
- 700 were prosecuted before an IT accounting system was found to be at fault
- 20 of those 700 were sent to prison
- £1bn cost to the taxpayer for footing compensation bill
- £60,000 amount of compensation offered by the Government to the wrongly accused
- 59 subpostmasters died before the payout was offered