Thread by @chrish9070

#PostOfficeScandal Since the age of 12 I delivered newspapers at the Post Office/newsagents I would go on to buy several years later. From the age of 14 I stopped the newspapers and began to work behind the retail counter before/after school and every weekend. I was earning

roughly £98 per week, sometimes more and sometimes less. I managed to save the vast majority of this. Turning 17 I was one of the few people at my age able to buy my 1st car after passing my test after just 10 lessons, less than 4 months after my 1st lesson. Bought a £1,000

Fiat Punto from the garage/petrol station across the road from the Newsagent I was working in. Started out at college and the long time owners who had built the Post Office in their garden decided they would sell as they were way beyond retirement age, I was desperate to buy it

since I had spent my entire young teenage life working there, knew the business inside out including the regular accounts, VAT and cash & carry visits as well as pricing and margins. My parents were against the idea being so young and along with the owners tried everything to

put me off and push me towards college. I attended college for a while but hated it, just was not for me. The business eventually sold to someone in the next village coming from a long term career in a large corporate entity, I helped them transition and worked for them some

days, opening the business a couple of days a week to give them some time out. They hated it and very soon realised it was not for them and decided to sell the business on again within months. I knew this time it was a sign that I was meant to buy it, usually a business like

this stays in a persons hands for many years. I told my parents this time I was buying it with or without their help/support. I visited Barclays, Alliance & Leicester and Lloyds and they said if I could provide a business plan they would consider it. After much deliberation my

parents finally reluctantly agreed to help, providing me small deposit loan alongside the money I had already saved up to be able to then make an offer on the business. I was recommended to the Post Office by the long serving Postmistress who had been like a 2nd Grandmother to me

and they agreed to allow me to apply to become Postmaster. Starting out in 2006 as the UK's youngest Postmaster the Post Office had a salary of just over £18,000. I worked incredibly hard whilst the vast majority of Post Offices saw their salaries reduce year on year due to

loss of government contracts, reduction in commission payments for the products sold. To give a better insight approx £10400 was a fixed pay element called a small office payment and the remaining £7600 was commission based on the level of work. Working alongside local

businesses and the community, explaining how the income structure worked I was able to secure multiple new customers on a regular basis. Some travelled past 5-6 other offices to use me for the service provided. Over the years I built the Post Office salary to £34500 for a single,

tiny 1 position counter that barely 1 person could fit into. I was processing parcels from 7am until 6am, collecting them from peoples houses nearby, built up a relationship with a clothes ebay customer, a local car online supply shop & a private jewellery dealer. I also

encouraged regular cash withdrawals by customers rather than just once a week, which always meant extra spend into the retail business. Baring in mind the commissions for each transaction were as low as 12.5p each you can tell how much increase there was to go from £18,000 to

£35,400. After 2-3 years I went into partnership to buy a 2nd much bigger office in a nearby town, 3 counters and with a salary of £55,000. With the growth of my own business and taking on the 2nd, I employed 7 staff between the 2 sites. The new business was fully staff

managed. What gets me is the growth in salary, retail turnover meant higher taxes and more VAT payments. It also meant employment of staff, themselves paying taxes. This is the kind of entrepreneurial people the UK needs. After everything came crashing down in 2015 with this

scandal wiping away the years of work from aged 12 and then a further 8+ years of my young adult life it has all left a bitter taste in my mouth. The wielding power of the state as Grant Shapp's called it is still going today. Allowing Post Office to cause delay to disclosure &

therefore ultimately restitution, no one willing to provide the guiding principles and legal parameters they are working on with the compensation schemes means we are fighting tooth & nail for what people are due. To attend multiple interviews under caution, have a house

searched, threatened with criminal proceedings & then dropped last minute with no reason, to then follow a few days later with civil proceedings, threatened continuously for payment of shortfalls, and bad press publicity. Lets be clear £10k for reputational damage is bonkers,

whoever originally designed those bands lives in a parallel universe. It is good to see the minister accept the recommendations of the advisory board that these bands are NOT limits but so called guidance and that complex cases will demand awards significantly higher than the

band upper limits and rightly so I am sure you will agree. I have relied upon legal case law to back that up. I refer to the case of Mirza v Farooqui [2021] EWHC 532 (QB), this is a case in which a businessman who specialised in providing advice to the Muslim community was

awarded damages after a newspaper published a libellous article about him, claiming that he was a fraudster, was dishonest and had been reported to the police for wrongdoing in the UK, Dubai and Canada. He was awarded £75,000 to compensate for injury to reputation and feelings,

to ensure adequate vindication and to restore his position in his community. It was relevant that the article was extensively published in the UK, particularly within the Muslim community within which the claimant worked. I accept in my case, the articles were not published

across the UK – it was within the local area but in some respects, that had a greater detrimental effect given those within the locality were the people I knew and had known for many, many years. I was also in a position of trust and I dealt with the local community’s money,

which exacerbated the suggestion I had been dishonest and stole from Post Office. Further, in the case of Appleyard v Wilby [2014] EWHC 2770 (QB), this case concerned a Police Officer, who was well known within a local community and libellous articles and Tweets about him being

associated with Jimmy Saville. In that case, the court awarded the Defendant to pay £60,000.
In particular, I consider it relevant in the context of this Application to have regard to the case of Broome v Cassell and what the judge in Appleyard v Wilby refers to as the

“grapevine effect”, i.e. once such allegations and statements have been made, they spread. That is precisely what happened to me. This is particularly relevant in a small community, such as the one where I lived at the time. I am sure now it is clear that £10k for reputational

damage is not just wrong morally it is wrong as a fact of law. Postmasters were the pillar of communities and the damage therefore done to them was severe.

I should add in all of this a picture of the 1st business I bought in 2006 at 17 turning 18

You can see in that picture back when cigs were £4 per pack 😂😂😂