Greeting card retailer and postmaster speaks out about PO Horizon scandal
In what has been called “the most widespread miscarriages of justice in UK history”, the Post Office Horizon scandal is at long last being properly investigated, quite rightly receiving parliamentary and media attention having damaged the lives of thousands of innocent postmasters.
It took the screening of TV drama Mr Bates v The Post Office to ram home the extent of how the flawed computer system wrecked the lives and livelihoods of so many sub-postmasters by mistakenly showing large deficits in their accounts.
And leading greeting card retailer Jerry Brown, co-owner of First Class Greetings and Plum Green in Hadleigh, Suffolk, where he has been a postmaster for 20 years, has not held back in his criticism of the Post Office, speaking out vociferously on various high-profile radio programmes and in newspapers, to highlight the urgent need for improved remuneration for those affected.
“Post Office Limited is an abhorrent organisation,” said Jerry, not mincing his words when he was interviewed on the Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 a few days ago, and he appeared again today, 18 January, along with Marlene Woods who owns Comrie Newsagents & Post Office in Perthshire.
Marlene struggled to hold back the tears as she revealed the idyllic setting of her business belies the financial horror of running it and how she’s likely to go bust: “My back is against the wall…I only have £120 in my current account. I will end up with no credit rating and no job. It’s toxic.”
Echoing the message that he shared on two LBC radio programmes as well as in the Eastern Daily Press recently, Jerry told how the paltry sums postmasters receive per transaction mean running the service is just not viable, and he warned sub-post offices will become a thing of the past unless something is done.
“To quote Toby Jones who played Alan Bates in the TV drama, ‘We’re just the skint little people’,” he told BBC Radio 2 listeners, explaining that the revenue he generates from his post office “does not even pay my staff’s wages” and how he has to subsidise it from his greeting card retailing side and his state pension.
“I receive just over 2p for every second-class stamp I sell and not much more for anything else, so you can see this is an impossible way to make a living.”
He feels aggrieved that mps and the minister for postal affairs Kevin Hollinrake have not taken on board the severity of the situation.
“All we get are lies, damn lies and more lies,” Jerry said on air. “I am 67 years old and the business is on the market, but who would buy a post pffice now? Something needs to be done to give fair remuneration to postmasters and postmistresses, otherwise there will be none left, and that would be another scandal.”
