Post Office offers Horizon victim 17% of compensation claim

In the UK Post Office "Horizon" scandal, a former post office branch manager, wrongly prosecuted, has said he felt "incredulous" when he was told he would only receive less than 17% of the compensation he claimed. Tim Brentnall, from Roch in Pembrokeshire, was accused of false accounting in 2010 after a £22,500 shortfall was discovered at his branch.

His conviction was overturned in 2021. In August last year, he submitted an application to the Post Office for full financial redress, to which the Post Office responded in December. Mr. Brentnall is currently resubmitting his claim, which he says feels like "re-living the prosecution."

A Post Office spokesperson said the Post Office apologizes "unreservedly" to victims of the Horizon IT scandal and is focused on paying compensation as quickly as possible. Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Mr. Brentnall said: "I was just incredulous. What I had prepared and what actually happened were worlds apart. It reminded me of the first time I received the summons to court from the Post Office. My claim was put together by a barrister and forensic accountant, we didn't pluck these figures out of thin air."

Mr. Brentnall said he received a response four months after submitting his claim, but the amount offered was less than 17% of what he had requested. He had previously been told that he would never receive the full amount of his claim, but the day before receiving the formal response, he was told the offer would be "significantly lower" than expected. Brentnall added, "You sit down and work out a figure or a percentage and think 'okay, that's enough for me to walk away and put this to bed'."

The former post office branch manager said he received a 50-page letter rejecting most of his claim, along with nearly 15,000 various documents. He said he has spent the past three months sifting through the documents in order to resubmit. Another former post office branch manager, Terry Walters, 76, died in February this year, aged 76, without receiving the full amount owed to him, despite submitting his claim for full financial redress more than a year ago. Brentnall said: "I'm 43, I can wait. But there are a lot of people older than me who should be able to sit back and relax and enjoy what they've got left, but they're not being put in that situation."

Mr. Brentnall bought the shop with his parents when he was 22, with the plan being that it would give him an income and help him stay in his "beautiful" home area. In 2009, auditors arrived on behalf of the Post Office and said they had found a discrepancy. "I was immediately suspended and within days I was taken to Haverfordwest police station to be interviewed," he recalled. "It was awful. I felt completely alone and helpless."

Even though Mr. Brentnall knew he had not taken any money, he and his family were desperate to make up the missing funds. His parents took out a loan to repay the alleged debt, but he was soon charged with false accounting. He was one of 736 former post office managers prosecuted because of the faulty "Horizon" computer system. "It wiped out all my parents' savings, the business we had, and has taken away any future employment for me for the past 15 years," he explained.

Like many others in similar situations, he was advised to plead guilty and was given an 18-month suspended sentence, plus 200 hours of community service. In 2021, his conviction was overturned, and he provided evidence to the Post Office inquiry in March 2022. The UK government confirmed on Monday that it would take over responsibility for the "overturned convictions scheme," which provides compensation to those whose convictions have been quashed. A Post Office spokesperson said that more than £768m has been paid to 5,100 people to date, adding: "We continue to listen to feedback to improve access to compensation for those affected."