Continued 'stress' of Sheffield postmaster over Post Office Horizon system
Video report by Lisa Adlam
A postmaster says he continues to live in fear of baseless legal action because of unexplained losses attributed to the discredited Horizon IT system.
Nasar Raoof, who runs the Banner Cross Post Office on Ecclesall Road in Sheffield, is using an updated version of the computer system which was responsible for wrongful criminal accusations against hundreds of Post Office employees.
Last year he faced a six-month investigation after £5,000 disappeared from his accounts. It found he had no case to answer.
But he says there is still a £3,000 hole in the accounts and he is continuing to face unexplained losses.
He said: "Losses are unexplainable. We're having countless IT issues. We're finding ourselves here at seven, eight o'clock at night trying to get the figures right.
"Our anxiety and our stress levels are ridiculously high. We're coming into work more stressed wondering whether it's going to balance today."
The Horizon scandal saw 2,700 sub-postmasters and mistresses wrongly accused of stealing money.
In 2021, dozens had their convictions quashed at the Court of Appeal after the faults were brought to light.
Following the ITVX drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office, the Government has pledged mass exonerations for those wrongly accused.
Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells, who was in charge of the company during the Horizon scandal, also announced she would return her CBE following backlash.
But Mr Raoof, who paid £70,000 for the Sheffield franchise three years ago, says he would never have taken it on if he had known the reality.
He said: "As things still stand with the Post Office, you can still be prosecuted. There's no immunity, even after what's gone off.
"The onus is constantly being put back on us. 'You need to try this' and 'It must be you with the issues', but why can't we have a talk about the elephant in the room which is Horizon?"
A Post Office spokesperson said: "We are very sorry to hear the experiences of our postmaster for Banner Cross Post Office. We made suggestions around how he might improve the operational processes in the branch and also offered to arrange a visit from one of our field trainers to refresh both himself and his colleagues on these processes.
"We have, and will continue, to speak regularly with our postmaster to understand what additional support he might need to resolve existing discrepancies as quickly as possible and how he might avoid future discrepancies occurring."
"There have been several versions of Horizon since its introduction in 1999 and the current version of the system, introduced from 2017, was found in the group litigation to be robust, relative to comparable systems."
A public inquiry is underway to establish if anyone linked to the Post Office and Fujitsu, who created the Horizon system, could be held responsible for the wrongful accusations.
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