A postmaster forced to hand back his compensation due to bankruptcy will use a £200,000 payment won following a three-year battle to support his ex-wife.
Francis Duff, 81, was driven from his business, suffered a divorce and lost his home after he was persecuted for “thieving” from his own till, when computer glitches were actually to blame.
He was offered more than £330,000 from a flagship scheme to compensate postmasters, but was told he would lose all but £8,000 because of his ongoing bankruptcy.
Duff, who won a certificate of valour from the Post Office for fighting off an armed robbery, said he had been “shafted twice” as he revealed he wore a coat indoors and wrapped a duvet around his legs to save on heating bills.
This week his lawyers announced that he would receive more than £200,000 of the compensation initially offered to him in a fight that has lasted three and a half years. Duff told The Times that he would use the money to support Louisa, 79, who left during their ordeal and now requires care for dementia.
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His lawyer, Neil Hudgell, said the payment took “two years too long” and the settlement offered was “still too little” given the suffering he had endured.
Duff, from Bootle, Merseyside, had been a postmaster since 1981 and for two decades ran his post office without a problem until the Horizon computer system was installed in 2000.
He said the Horizon system showed “missing” cash of up to £200 every week. “Overall, I would conservatively estimate the shortfalls to have been in the region of £16,500,” he said. “I continued using my own salary to repay the Horizon shortfalls in cash.
“My relationship with my wife started to suffer. We had been happily married for 34 years, but we started to have arguments about the losses. She encouraged me to sack staff. I refused and she told me that I was ‘not man enough’. We separated while I was still working for Post Office and eventually divorced.”
He resigned from the Post Office, which was then sold. He declared bankruptcy in 2001 and the post office was sold for £25,000 — a fifth of the asking price. “The proceeds went directly to the bankruptcy estate, as did my share in the value of the marital home,” he said.
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Twenty years later he was offered £330,893 compensation, but was told in a 30-page letter that all but £8,000, awarded for “distress”, would be taken away. Now, thanks to several creditors failing to come forward, Duff will receive an additional payout of more than £200,000, which he says will enable him to support his ex-wife.
“She was a good wife and a good mum, and I’ve not lost sight of the fact that this impacted hugely on her life too,” he said. “It was the Post Office that drove a wedge between us.
“We had a happy marriage but all the problems caused by Horizon led to so many arguments and the breakdown of our relationship. I want to be there to help her and feel she should benefit from any compensation I receive. It happened to so many families. It all could have been so different for so many.”
In total, 4,300 postmasters lost their jobs, were forced into destitution or prosecuted after money went “missing” from their tills. Three years after the flagship Horizon Shortfall Scheme was launched, more than 328 of the 2,793 claims lodged under the scheme are still going through dispute resolution.
They are some of the 1,800 claims which have yet to be settled, including hundreds of convicted postmasters and just over 400 postmasters led by Alan Bates, the campaigner who inspired the ITV drama about the scandal that was broadcast last month.
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A Post Office spokesman said: “Our sole aim is to get full and fair redress to people as fast as we are able. Claims are assessed by an independent advisory panel and interim payments can also be made. A total of around £125 million has been offered to postmasters in the scheme, with the majority of claims agreed and paid.”
