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Witness Name: Mr Manhar Mistry
Statement No.: WITNO216_01
THE POST OFFICE HORIZON INQUIRY
FIRST WITNESS STATEMENT OF MR MANHAR MISTRY
I, MR MANHAR MISTRY WILL SAY as follows:
INTRODUCTION
1. I am grateful to the Chair to be invited to provide a “human impact” statement,
concerning the physical, psychological, emotional, reputational and financial
consequences to me and my family of being held responsible for shortfalls shown by
the Horizon IT system and Post Office Limited’s actions toward me and my family.
The initial paragraphs below provide a brief summary of my background, and provide
context to the detail of the human impact of the Horizon scandal on me and my
family. This statement does not reflect a full account of my experiences or those of
my family and if necessary or required I will provide further witness statement
evidence.
BACKGROUND
2 1 am 71 Years of age and I am married with two daughters. I have been living in
Thurmaston, Leicester for the past 5 years. I have always been in work whether
that’s been employed or self-employed.
2. Before becoming a subpostmaster I was working as manager at a petrol station for
Shell. I was under this managerial role for 6 years in Blaby, Leicestershire.
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4, 1 decided to become a subpostmaster as I wanted the flexibility of working hours.
While working at the petrol station I was working approximately 60 hours a week, I
felt over worked and wanted something with lesser hours and normal working
hours.
5. 1 also thought by being a subpostmaster it would be a better opportunity than my
managerial role at the petro! station; I would have a steady increased income for my
family as I was the main provider.
6. The post office on Malabar Road, Leicester was on sale and decided to approach the
owner at that time.
7. I took out a loan from the bank in the sum of £40,000.00 and used approximately
£30,000.00 from personal savings. As I was taking over the post office, I paid
£75,000.00 for stock and good will.
8. I was a subpostmaster of 46 Malabar Road, Leicester LE1 2PD from 9 January 2002 to
20 Jan 2020,
9. I operated a retail business from the premises, a small shop selling confectionary and
stationary. I had two part time assistant when taking over the post office.
Training and Support
10. I received 5 days of training during the first week of appointment which was
conducted in my branch. A trainer came in to provide the training and it seemed
good training as far as it went. The training covered day to day operations and back
office report, weekly report and balancing.
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11. The negative was that training did not provide any information about audit trails and
how to look back on the Horizon system to trace an unexplained shortages.
12. I did a weekly balance with the trainer present and it balanced nicely.
13. received no other initial training apart from product information.
14. I did feel the training was adequate at that time. However, I did feel that the balance
and back office training was not enough. I was not given enough training on how to
deal with transaction corrections which then contributed toward the shortfalls at a
later date. At times I was struggling with the weekly balance showing a shortfall
when there should been and balance should have been O. This started to become a
problem.
15. I was advised by the trainer to contact the Helpline if I experienced any problems
and they would help me.
16. The Horizon system was updated in 2008/2009 and I received further training for 1-2
days. We went through the updates but this this not cover any problems I had
experienced regarding the unexplained shortfalls.
Helpline
17. I estimate that I contacted the Helpline less than once a month with regard to
problems relating to alleged shortfalls or balancing. I was led to believe by the
Helpline that the errors reported were mistakes on my part, or an error by one of my
staff in counting stock or cash. The Helpline could not tell me how to look into the
errors through the transaction logs; there was no information available to trace any
discrepancies. The problem was still the same 2019 as it was in 2002.
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18. I would say the Helpline were good for helping me in navigating the system, in terms
of what keys to press when doing certain transactions, but not very good when it
came to explaining shortages/discrepancies and conducting a transaction audit. I felt
that more training was required and this should been done at the start or provided
as when a problem would occur. It would have been helpful to have a trainer come
and explain things as there is so much you could do over the phone.
19. That year I had a shortfall of £500 (details below) and the Helpline was of no help.
They just asked me to look over historic transactions, which I could not do. In this
respect, I would say the Helpline did not provide adequate support or simply that did
not have answers to actual problems I was facing.
20. Some of the advisors, when calling the Helpline said to refer to the manual but this
was again not helpful.
21. The main issue was how to rectify the shortfall and bringing the balance back to 0
but the helpline could not answer my query.
Shortfalls
22. In this section, I set out in very brief detail my experience of shortfalls arising from
deficiencies in the Horizon IT System, and Post Office Limited’s actions as a result.
This is only a brief introduction to those matters, in order to provide necessary
context for the explanation of the human impact which follows.
23. 1 would estimate that throughout my position in the branch, I paid approximately
£2500.00 to the Post office. The auditor identified part of shortfalls but also the
Horizon system showed a shortfall. The shortfalls are broken as:
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24.
25.
26.
27.
28,
29.
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The majority of the shortfalls I experienced comprised were less than £100.00 which
were made up of cash, postage, hand and stock figures. I cannot breakdown this any
further as shortfall was minimal. These happened often.
As an example, shortages were anything between £50 to £90. The instance are too
numerous to recall specific dates. I paid the shortages out of my own money either
in cash or a cheque which I put in the post office safe. I would count the cash and
stock again. If there still shortage it could not be accounted for and I would end up
usually making up the shortfall in cash or in cheque using my own money and put it
into the safe. I would then declare the accounts as balanced on Horizon.
However there were much larger shortfalls. For example, in early in 2017, I
experienced an alleged shortage of £500 this was the monthly balance. I cannot
remember the exact date. The shortfall was showing on the Horizon system. I recall
calling the Helpline and I was given some guidance on how to look into it on the
system. I tried looking into it after the call but could not see anything.
There is an option on the Horizon system to "settle centrally" which I chose to do
after the unsuccessful assistance from the helpline. I then received a letter from
Post Office saying that I owed this amount. i am sure I called the Helpline again to
say that I could not find where the shortfall had occurred. The Helpline told me to
check back through historic transaction logs and if I could not find the shortfall it was
my responsibility to make good the loss. The Helpline said that if I did not pay then
the matter would be escalated to the Contracts Manager.
I then received a further letter from Post Office again saying that I owned the sum.
Eventually, I just gave in and I sent a cheque to Post Office for £500 to settle the
alleged shortfall.
[was led to believe that I had no alternative but to pay the shortfalls out of my own
pocket.
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Audit and investigation
30, The first audit was soon after I took over the branch this was approximately 6
months after taking over and the next one was in 2012. These were initial/ routine
audits. Both audits we uninformed audits.
31, In the first audit, it was identified the balance was negative and the auditor
confirmed a shortfall of approximately £20-30. With the shortfall I had 2 options; to
pay for the shortfall out of my own pocket or to have a deduction from my salary.
There were no questions to look into how the shortfall occurred or query whether
there was error with the Horizon system. I paid by cheque from my own pocket for
the loss.
32. In the next audit it was identified that there was a small security issue. The lock on
the parcel hatch was not secured properly. The issue was resolved swiftly. The
auditor notified me that one of part time assistants did not complete a module on
sales.
33. I am not aware of any investigations taken place and nor have I seen an evidence of
an adequate investigation.
Suspension and Termination
34. I was not suspended or terminated as a subpostmaster. I decided to resign from my
post as I wanted to retire and at the time I was 70 years of age. While deciding to
retire I found another buyer who wanted to take over the Post Office.
35. I was not really given an option but to pay for the shortfalls and was not directly
threatened with action by the Post Office. However, because of the regular
shortfalls, I was fearful of such action that could result of the formal interviews or to
be subject of termination of my contract.
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HUMAN IMPACT
36. 1 suffered serious problems with the Horizon system including alleged shortfalls. I had
to pay approximately £2,500.00 of my own money to cover these alleged shortfalls. I
sought assistance from the Post Office Helpline over a long period of time and I feel
very let down by the fact I received no meaningful assistance for the issues I was
facing.
37. I was not involved in mediation in 2013. I was party to the group litigation against Post
Office Ltd, as a result I am excluded from the Historic Shortfall Scheme.
38. I was advised at audits that I had to pay for the shortfalls one way or another. I was
only given 2 options; to pay out of my own pocket or to receive a deduction in my
salary.
39. I always worried about putting money into the Post Office from my pocket when any
shortfall occurred. I believe the training from Post Office was extremely inadequate
when it came to doing the weekly or monthly balancing. The Post Office did not
provide any training to cover incidences where there manager had to go back and try
to find the error that caused the shortfall to occur. You may call it ‘self-auditing’ of the
weekly transactions. This was required for small or large shortfalls.
40. I know that recently the Post Office has had issues and there are some guidelines so
that any shortfalls can be asked to be looked into by their expert on Horizon. These
guidelines were issued only after the civil case in which I was involved.
41. Due to lack of auditing training, I was always lead to believe that I had no option but to
accept “it could be your/your member of staff's mistake that has resulted into
shortfalls’. On many occasions I tried to trace the shortfall, it would take hours of
work to count and recount stock, cash etc. Sometimes, shortfalls were due to obvious
reasons, like ' professional hazard ' for which there is no redress.
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42. I was annoyed when I found out that I had to pay out my own pocket for every
shortfall. Whether this was out my pocket or through a deduction in my salary. At the
end of the day it was always me out of pocket.
43. 1 felt that there could be no error on part of the Post Office and Horizon system. A lot
more could have been done at the time when I was experiencing shortfalls and
investigated further as to why this was happening instead of just asking me to pay for
the shortfall to resolve the matter quickly.
44. I was worried each time when there was a shortfall until it was resolved. I did not
want to burden my family with the issues so I kept this all to myself.
CONCLUSION
45. From my experience with the Post Office, I feel there should be a different approach
between the Post Office and subpostmasters. They should sympathise more with the
subpostmaster and look into the issue with the Horizon system.
46. I feel as a Subpostmaster I was solely responsible for any error that occurred resulting
in shortfalls. I feel that I have been treated unfairly by the Post Office.
47. The Post Office have failed to acknowledge that there and has been a fault with the
Horizon system and the Subpostmasters have not been treated fairly. They have been
left to deal with everything which has affected every aspect of their life.
48. I would like to see some clarity as to what the issue really is and would to know which
party is responsible.
Statement of Truth
I believe the contents of this statement to be true
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Manhar Misti
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