The fight goes on for wrongly-accused Farncombe sub-postmaster

As it is revealed that hundreds of victims of the Post Office IT scandal will be excluded from a new compensation scheme, the Post Office is also facing a potential legal challenge from a local man.

Over 15 years, postmasters were sacked, bankrupted or wrongfully convicted after bosses pursued them for money 'missing' from their accounts.

But it later emerged that shortfalls at local branches, some running to more than £100,000, were likely to be the result of flaws in the Horizon computer system.

However, the new scheme set up to compensate those wrongly accused excludes Post Office workers in shops, and 555 postmasters who won a High Court fight last year.

The Post Office, which is wholly owned by the Government, says the postmasters in the High Court case are not eligible, as they won a settlement of £58million.

However, most of this went to legal funders and lawyers' fees.

Post Office workers in shops are also not eligible as their contract of employment was with companies such as McColl's, WH Smith and the Co-op, not the central Post Office company.

Almost 2,200 victims have entered claims for compensation from the Historical Shortfall Scheme, which closed to applicants last month.

Crowdfunding campaign.

Former Farncombe sub-postmaster Chirag Sidphura, 37, is running a crowdfunding campaign to challenge the process set up to compensate sub-postmasters affected by the scandal. Mr Sidphura, who is known as Sid, lost £57,000 after he was accused of false accounting by Post Office bosses. He didn't take part in the High Court action, so today's news does not apply to him. For Mr Sidphura, the fight goes on. "It left me broke. It is time for the Post Office to make good all the harm it has done," he said. He says he wants a judicial review into the process the Post Office is planning to use to compensate former sub-postmasters caught up in the scandal. "The process is fundamentally flawed and seeks to further the mistreatment of us. If I win this case it will affect all of us cheated by the Post Office," he said. "From January 2013 to February 2018, I worked as a sub-postmaster for the PO at Sid's News, running the branch at Farncombe. The Post Office sacked me after it claimed to have identified a shortfall in the branch account of over £57,000 through its Horizon accounting software. The Post Office had, itself, secretly determined before this that Horizon was "not fit for purpose". "The Post Office is owned and controlled by the Government. It proudly announces that it is 'backed by Government funding' and it spent £120 million of that funding on fighting the court case against it. Post Office criticised.

"The Post Office has been heavily criticised in Parliament, with calls for it to properly compensate those that have suffered at its hands. That suffering has included criminal convictions and bankruptcies at the hands of the Post Office.

"One MP said that the Post Office executives used 'grotesque predatory capitalism' throughout the Horizon IT scandal.

"The compensation scheme for postmasters is being administered through a system established by the Post Office. The lawyers in control of it are the very lawyers who last year were protesting the Post Office's innocence. The system is flawed and must be changed.

"The Post Office has been forced to admit that they were wrong to accuse hundreds of postmasters and yet still justice has not been done.

"Through this judicial review I am seeking to do that and secure a fair, transparent and public system for sub-postmasters. The Post Office described the scandal to the Court as "an existential threat" to its business. It is seeking to bury this process as deeply as possible with a view to paying as little as possible to those victims like me.

"The Post Office actions left me broke and I do not have the funds to meet what the Post Office will throw at me. They spent over £120 million of public money on losing the court battle."

He described the potential legal case as "a truly David and Goliath battle".

Appeal Court hearing.

In light of the High Court's findings, the Criminal Cases Review Commission has referred 47 unsafe Horizon-based convictions to the Court of Appeal.

The Commission says it is confident the convictions will be overturned because of what it calls the Post Office's "abuse of process".

The new scheme runs parallel to postmasters' attempts to overturn their convictions. In June, the cases of 47 found guilty of false accounting, theft or fraud were sent to the Court of Appeal, while the Post Office is reviewing 960 convictions.

Following the mediation process, which ended last December, Post Office Chairman Tim Parker said: "We accept that, in the past, we got things wrong in our dealings with a number of postmasters and we look forward to moving ahead now, with our new CEO currently leading a major overhaul of our engagement and relationship with postmasters."