A former Scottish sub-postmaster who attempted to take his own life after being convicted in the Post Office scandal has told Sky News he has no faith in government plans to pardon victims.
Rab Thomson, who lives in Clackmannanshire, is one of around 100 people in Scotland wrongfully given a criminal record after bogus shortfalls appeared in the faulty Horizon IT system.
Prosecutions north of the border were managed by Scotland’s independent public prosecution service, the Crown Office, as opposed to internal criminal investigations led by the Post Office in England and Wales.
Four people have had their convictions quashed in Scotland to date.
Read more stories from victims of the scandal
The 64-year-old told Sky News that trouble started brewing in the year 2000 when the newly installed IT system began generating apparent shortfalls.
The father of two said: “As the time went on, it kept going up and up to £10,000, £15,000, up to £60,000. Panic set in.”
He said he tried to take his own life, adding: “I came and told my wife that I was finished. I said ‘I can’t live with this’. Depression is a really serious thing.”
He says when his case came to court he was told to confess to the allegations minutes before appearing in front of the judge to make life “easier” for his family.
“I said: ‘No, no, no. I don’t want to plead guilty. I’ve not done anything wrong. I’ve told you this from day one.'”
‘It’s disgusting’
It has emerged the Crown Office first became aware of possible concerns around the reliability of Horizon in 2013 but it failed to halt cases based on evidence from the system until 2015.
Louise Dar began running her local Post Office in Lenzie on the outskirts of Glasgow in 2014.
The former sub-postmistress lost everything after being hounded over claims she had stolen £44,000.
The 41-year-old was never convicted and told Sky News she believes that is because the Crown Office knew the Horizon system was flawed.
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Source: news.sky.com
This notice was published: 2024-01-11 17:32:00
Sky News is a British 24-hour information television channel, the first in Europe of its kind, launched on February 5, 1989 by the British Sky Broadcasting Company.