A former sub-post office manager used his appearance at the BRIT Awards to call for faster compensation for those wrongly prosecuted as part of the Post Office IT scandal.
Jo Hamilton made the appeal along with actor Monica Dolan, who played her in the hit ITV drama adaptation of Mr Bates vs the Post Office. The pair were presenting the first category of the night at London’s O2 Arena.
Mrs Hamilton, 66, was wrongly accused of stealing more than £36,000 from the Post Office branch she was then responsible for in South Warnborough, Hampshire. To avoid her prison sentence, she pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of false accounting, and she was indicted in 2006.
The mother of two, who presented Ray with the song of the year award for her song ‘Escapism’, said at the ceremony: No matter what the government says, please continue to support us because we are not paying postmasters. ”
Mrs. Hamilton worked as a cleaner, borrowed money from friends, received donations from the community, and mortgaged her home twice to repay the money she was accused of taking.
In 2021, her conviction was overturned when it was discovered that she was the victim of a flawed computer system. More than 900 post office operators have been charged with stealing money due to incorrect accounting information provided by an IT system called Horizon.
Her calls for compensation were echoed by Henry Stanton, the Post Office’s former chairman, who urged the office to be “handed over” to the Post Office Operator.
According to a report by Sky NewsHenry Staunton wrote to Liam Byrne, chairman of the Commerce and Industry Committee, claiming that the government had “consistently hid behind the skirts of the Post Office and distanced itself from the problem”.
Stanton, who was fired in January, also accused the Department of Commerce and Industry of not acknowledging the “mistakes” of post office operators or of not doing “the right thing” by post office operators.
He called for a “strict and specific deadline” for compensation for victims, “ideally within six months.” He also said the company needed to be “completely removed” from the compensation process and called for an independent body to take over.
