Horizon scandal left me suicidal, says postmistress who lost her home thanks to computer glitch

"In February it was that bad, I was really suicidal, so I gave the Post Office four weeks' notice to take the terminal out," she says.

Her resignation was refused.

"They told me I had a contract with the Post Office. They said 'you are allowed to resign in July'."

The walls of Mrs Doal's convenience store in Wheaton Aston, Staffordshire, are festooned with awards she and her husband Charanjit have won since taking over the shop 18 years ago. Lauded for their work in the community, and their charitable fundraising, they were much-loved pillars of the community when they decided to add a Post Office counter to their business in 2014.

"There was a Post Office in the village, and when they retired we thought it was a very good chance to grow our business, and provide a service to the community," says the 43-year-old mother-of-two.

Mrs Doal had previously worked in banking, so was reasonably familiar with handling financial transactions. But she encountered problems the moment the Horizon system was installed.

"I started noticing shortfalls pretty much straight away," she says. "There were two other members of staff, so if there was a discrepancy I assumed it was one of the other staff. And it was only small amounts to begin with, so I just made up the difference."

As the losses began to mount up, she raised the issue with the Post Office, but her concerns fell on deaf ears.

"In 2016, I was trying to get help from the helpdesk, they just told me I had to make good the cash."

Frustrated by the lack of interest from the Post Office, she shut the counter for a week, and focused instead on the convenience store.

"I wanted them to listen to me, and I thought this was the only way I could make them take notice," she says.

"After a week, I had a visit from our area manager, Paul Williams. I wanted him to help me, but he reassured me everything would come good in the end, and we reopened the branch."

What nobody told Mrs Doal was that claims about problems with the Horizon system were already well documented by this time, with the Express & Star's sister publication the Shropshire Star having already highlighted the case of Shrewsbury sub-postmistress Rubbina Shaheen, who was then fighting to clear her name having been wrongly jailed for false accounting.

Indeed, the striking thing about Mrs Doal's case is how the Post Office continually pursued her for money it said she owed, even while fighting a high-profile legal battle with hundreds of other workers across the country.

"I had no idea that all this was going on - I had not read any of the news stories, I had been busy running the business," she says.

But nothing could have braced her for the moment when the Horizon system threw up a shortfall of £64,000.

"They told me 'we are going to suspend you unless you come up with the money'," says Mrs Doal.

"I told them I had not got that money. Unless I was given help, how could I possibly find that amount?"

She added that the system was unable to show where the discrepancies had occurred.

In the end, the Post Office suggested she made monthly payments deducted from the allowance it gave her from running the branch. She reluctantly agreed, even though it meant she was effectively working without pay, just to cover the debt created by the Horizon system. But the other problem was that the shortfall continued to grow, rising first to £80,000, and then to £90,000.

"It was hopeless, I went into depression. I needed help, but I didn't want to talk to anybody."

In the autumn of 2019, Mrs Doal received a visit from the auditors, and was immediately suspended.

"They took all our computers and put them in the safe, they switched off the bill payment machines," she says.

"It was just before Christmas, and it really hurt our business, but nobody wanted to know."

Up until that time, Mrs Doal and her husband were much-loved members of the community, but the mood in the village quickly turned against them.

"We had the store for years, but people stopped coming in. When they did, they were throwing their money on the counter, they were talking about us on social media."

Matters were not helped when the parish council asked the Post Office for clarification about what was happening and the Post Office responded with the statement 'we are actively working towards arranging a new service', which was posted on the parish council's Facebook page.

The Post Office agreed that the letter had been 'badly worded', and assured Mrs Doal that no decision had been made. But by this time, much of the damage had been done, with disparaging comments appearing on social media.

In December 2019, Mrs Doal was called in for an interview with the Post Office, and she was informed she would be reinstated after it was decided to take no further action. What the Post Office failed to inform her about was the case going on in the High Court, where 555 Post Office workers ­– including Tracy Felstead from Telford – were suing the company after being wrongly blamed for shortfalls caused by the Horizon system.

By this time, Mr Justice Fraser had already condemned the Post Office for its 'oppressive behaviour' in demanding they paid sums of money for unexplained financial discrepancies, and likened the company to 'a Victorian factory owner'.

And then, on December 16, Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells announced the company would drop its opposition to the staff's claim, and agreed to pay £58 million in compensation. It was this, plus the judge's final report on the hearing, which finally laid bare the failings with the Horizon system, and the wrongful convictions of hundreds of workers.

But while the Post Office executives nationally now appeared to be conceding there was a problem, Mrs Doal found the officials she had to deal with were still in a less conciliatory mood.

"As soon as I logged on after they reconnected the machine, there was a shortfall of £2,000," she says.

"It had been set back to zero, and I had no access to it. They told me I would have to pay it."

Mrs Doal refused, and the Post Office agreed to write off the debt. But this was the final straw. By this time, she reckons she was £150,000 out of pocket, and had been forced to sell the family home.

"We had a rental property next door which we were able to move into, but it had been empty for some time and needed a lot of work doing on it."

She is now pursuing legal action against the Post Office for the losses she incurred.