London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

‘So much has been taken from us’: former post office operators speak out

‘So much has been taken from us’: former post office operators speak out

Victims of England’s most widespread miscarriage of justice and software error talk of shocking impact on whole families

Shunned, jobless and in some cases having endured prison – the past ordeals of former post office operators whose convictions were quashed on Friday were still all too raw outside the high court.


UK Post Office software error shows that Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity” (Eric Bach). 


England 2021: Postal workers committed suicide, were sent to prison and fired because of a software error. 


Seema Misra was pregnant with her second child when she was convicted of theft and sent to jail in 2010.

As she embraced her husband on Friday, she spoke about what had been going through her mind when the court of appeal judges quashed her conviction and that of 38 others in the wake of the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice.

“I was standing in the dock and just wanted to hold his hand,” she said, recalling the moment when she was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010. “It’s hard to say but I think that if I had not been pregnant, I would have killed myself.”

After becoming a post office operator in West Byfleet, Surrey, in 2005, she was suspended three years later after an audit found an accounting discrepancy of £74,000. Over two years she had attempted to balance her books, borrowing money and transferring takings, but failed to keep her head above water and was eventually jailed.

Described in press reports at the time as a “pregnant thief”, she went to prison and her husband was beaten up by locals. Now Misra was looking forward to how the result would change her life, for example when confronted with questions about past convictions at the airport.

‘It was a disaster because it was our life’: Della Robinson, 53, outside the Royal Courts of Justice, London.


“Just being able to experience what it’s like to be a normal person is something I’m relishing,” she said. “Not having to put down on travel forms that I have been convicted.”

Among others looking forward to celebrating the result – although mindful of the fact it has come too late for those who have taken their own lives – was Della Robinson, 54.

After taking over her local post office in Dukinfield, Greater Manchester, in 2006, her world started to fall apart four years later as a result of flaws in the Post Office’s IT system, Horizon. Takings repeatedly came up short and £17,000 was unaccounted for by 2012, leading to her suspension and the involvement of the police.

She said: “It was a disaster because it was our life. We had properties tied to the post office as well. It just didn’t make sense and wouldn’t have to anyone in their right mind. I was on £74,000 a year. Why would I risk it by stealing £17,000?”

Advised that she could avoid prison if she admitted to false accounting, she pleaded guilty and received a community service sentence. The ordeal sank her into depression and worsened her epilepsy condition.

“We just had to find a way of keeping going because you just never knew what the Post Office were going to come up with. I would say, though, that it didn’t ruin our lives because we are a close family, but it has been a slog,” she said.

Her children and grandchildren kept her going amid awkward silences from others. “There was not one person who came up to us and asked: ‘What has happened?’ Even the people you would drink with in the pub never brought it up, but then they began to say things [when] the wind began to change in our favour, with our legal wins, as people who had suffered came together.

“I think they knew all along that I was innocent but had too much respect to say anything.”

‘You found yourself crying every day’: Vijay Parekh, 62, outside the Royal Courts of Justice, London.


Others whose convictions were quashed yesterday and who had spent time in jail was Vijay Parekh, 62, a former train dispatcher at Euston station in London. He had left that job to go into the post office business with his wife when he was 48.

“It was intended to be the business that we would work through towards a comfortable retirement,” he said, flanked by his family.

Instead, within three years, they had fallen victim to the same problems blamed on the Horizon system. Facing a charge of theft over a sum of about £78,000, he had to plead guilty because his barrister advised him to do so.

“The whole family suffered. I was inside but outside my father was in his 70s and it had an impact on everyone. It was impossible to sleep, you found yourself crying every day,” said Parekh, who spent six months in prison.

After his release it took him years of searching to find work. “Because of that CRB check you really can’t work anywhere at all. Now it will have been cleared and I could look for a job but I have reached retirement age.

“At the moment I am going to have a week’s rest. To be honest, for a long time, I never believed this day would come, but it has. In a way we haven’t won anything. Instead so much has been taken from us and now our names have been cleared.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
×