A former sub-postmaster who was wrongfully convicted of a £200,000 theft and sentenced to three years in jail told an inquiry that someone should go to prison for the scandal that affected hundreds of innocent people.
45-year-old father-of-three, Harjinder Butoy, pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of theft in 2008. At his trial the Post Office insisted he was responsible for the cash shortfall at his business at Sutton-in Ashfield in Nottinghamshire and he was found guilty.
At the third day of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry he said, “Everything fell apart for me and my family. I want someone to be charged. Why did they hide it all? I want someone to go to prison.”
His was one of the longest sentences handed down when more than 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were prosecuted by the Post Office based on information from its faulty Horizon IT system between 2000 and 2014. A High Court ruling in 2019 found the system contained “bugs, errors and defects”, causing a “material risk” that shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts had been caused by the system.
After being jailed Mr Butoy was also told to pay £60,000 back to the Post Office. He had bought the business in 2004 with savings and money he borrowed off his family. He told the Inquiry he’d had a week’s training on the Horizon system and even when the trainer was present it did not always add up and there were small shortfalls.
“There were Horizon discrepancies every week. I kept money on the side if it was up because I knew it would be down the following week,” he recalled. In 2007 four auditors arrived at his post office, “I just let them get on with it, and then they came into my house with CID and said £208,000 missing, I was shocked,” he said.
“They arrested me straight away. It happened so quickly. I was so confused. Customers saw me being taken away and I felt ashamed. At the police station they were chucking questions at me I couldn’t answer straight away, questions that I didn’t know the answer to.”
He pleaded not guilty to theft at his trial in at Nottingham Crown Court. “I said it’s not me who stole the money, are you sure Horizon is correct? But the Post Office said it was 100 per cent correct.
“During the trial I kept telling my wife don’t worry the jury will be on my side. Even on the day, I thought I’ll be ok. I just fell apart. I wasn’t prepared for it. My life got torn apart. When they handcuffed me, I didn’t know what was happening, I was just falling apart. I kept thinking; how did I end up here?”
His conviction was overturned in April last year. Today he told the Inquiry “I want someone to be charged. Why did they hide it all? They knew the evidence was there. I want someone to go to prison.”
Mr Butoy is one of 56 former Post Office workers to appear before the Inquiry, all supported by Hudgell Solicitors to successfully appeal against their convictions and have them quashed at the Court of Appeal last year.
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‘I pleaded guilty, so in everyone’s mind I was’
William Graham was a Post Office training manager, working with sub-postmasters, before he decided to become one himself.
He bought a business in 2002 in Sevenoaks, Kent and told the Inquiry from the beginning there were problems with the Horizon system, “you never balanced to zero, there were always fluctuations and small losses” he said.
The discrepancies grew bigger, “When they got larger, I called the helpline. I was told ‘you are liable’, and I made good shortfalls of a couple of hundred pounds out of my own pocket, the loss had to be cleared.”
In 2004 there was a £5,000 shortfall. “I didn’t have that money. On the helpline they said you are responsible, and I said I wasn’t in position to pay it.” It was agreed that over 12 months they would deduct what was claimed to be owed to bring the loss to zero, but in 2008 there was a £50,000 shortfall. Mr Graham told the Inquiry he didn’t report it.
“I was never going to be able to afford that. I hoped it was an error. I was dreading anyone coming to check the accounts. I made the accounts look right or else I was going to lose my livelihood,” he said.
In 2009 auditors arrived and a £65,000 shortfall was identified. “They were asking where the money was, I said ‘there’s got to be something wrong with the system, there has to be, because there’s no way I took that’.
Mr Graham was charged with theft and two counts of false accounting. Minutes before his trial was due to start in 2011 he was offered a plea bargain; the Post Office was willing to accept a guilty plea to false accounting and drop the theft charge. He pleaded guilty to the lesser charge.
“The thought of not seeing your kids, my wife struggling, but I got to go home that night and I justified the deal. I pleaded guilty, so in everyone’s mind I was.” He was given a suspended prison sentence of 32 weeks and had to pay £3,600 of court costs.
“I felt worthless. I had a wife and children; I couldn’t provide for them. I didn’t know how I was going to keep the house. If it wasn’t for my wife who has been a rock I probably wouldn’t be here now – I wanted it all gone,” he said.
“I want them to find out what went wrong. Come forward and tell us what went wrong and when? And why they didn’t come out and admit it rather than put everyone through this. Get the people up here admitting they made mistakes. I want justice for people who have gone through this pain.”
Despite the Post Office admitting there were 736 convictions of Sub-Postmasters in which Horizon was ‘intrinsic’ to prosecutions – and therefore unsafe – still less than 100 people have had their convictions quashed.
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