ICYMI:
...Dennis Hammond had been a village post office operator for 20 years when he was blamed for a cash shortfall of about £3,000 soon after the Horizon system was installed. The money was subsequently deducted from his wages.
“He told me that the auditor, who was usually very friendly, had paid a visit which wasn’t friendly at all and that some money was missing, then he never spoke of it again,” said Hammond. “All these years I assumed that there must have been some mistake that was then put right.
“I was a sub-postmistress myself in a neighbouring village at the time and had complete trust in the Post Office. It wasn’t until 2021, when I read of the fate of other postmasters, that I realised that he must have been a victim of Horizon too. By then he was dead and it was too late to help him.”
Hammond contacted the Horizon shortfall scheme, launched to compensate affected postal operators in 2021, in an attempt to vindicate her husband, and was told she was out of time. The scheme had closed to new applicants six months after opening during the first lockdown in 2020. “We were never informed of a compensation scheme for those who paid what was demanded without being convicted,” she said. “As my husband was dying of cancer in 2020, my attention was elsewhere.”...