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Witness Name: Pauline Coyle
Statement No.:WITN0310_01
Exhibits: None
IN THE POST OFFICE HORIZON IT INQUIRY
FIRST WITNESS STATEMENT OF PAULINE COYLE
1, PAULINE COYLE, 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
. 1am originally from north Manchester. Before I came
a subpostmaster, I had a variety of different jobs, including working with and
providing accommodation to foreign students.
3. My husband had always been self-employed, and we fancied a village shop. We had
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decided on a change in scenery, and a new challenge. At the time, our daughter was
8 years old, we were attracted by the change and the financial security.
4. It so happened that the shop we ended up buying had a post office branch within it.
We had looked ail over the country, from Cornwall to Scotland, and in Wales. There
was no particular connection to Lincolnshire, but the shop and the place just seemed
right. There was a nice school, and we could afford to buy it.
5. We sold our house, my husband’s black cab (he was a taxi driver) and moved lock,
stock and barrel to Brigg. Initially, my husband was the subpostmaster at Bonby Post
Office 58 Main Street, Brigg, north Lincolnshire DN20 OPW. We lived in the flat
above the shop and post office, where we are still now. I was subpostmaster from
later that year, approximately a month after we had moved into the shop, in
circumstances which I explain below.
TRAINING AND SUPPORT
6. My husband went to off-site training in Leeds, for approximately 3 days. I remember
that we had told me that the system was a “bloody nightmare”, and that he did not
know what he was doing.
7. thad used computers a small bit, but the extent of our knowledge was playing the
Lion King game with my daughter on the computer. We were thrown-in to the deep
end, totally.
8. Post Office would not pay for me to do the training, even following my taking over as
subpostmaster. I had to be ‘trained’ by my husband, which was the blind leading the
blind. He was not confident on the system and had immediately began to experience
problems, so it was simply not enough for me to have to learn from my husband. I
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undertook training very shortly afterwards, to the extent that I was trained by the
Post Office sending a trainer to our branch for a single day. I remember that it was
totally inadequate; it was focussed on how to use the system. It was never
impressed on us the consequences of getting things wrong, or the importance that
things were done right.
9. The trainer came back for a second visit, the following Wednesday, to help me with
the balance. The trainer was nice enough, but we immediately began to experience
shortfalls and difficulty with the management of the branch.
SHORTFALLS
10. My husband was the subpostmaster at first, shortly after moving into the branch. He
was under a huge amount of pressure from customers and to manage the shop, and
he began to struggle. The management of the post office was totally different, alien,
to what he or I was doing before and, coupled with the lack of training, it was difficult.
11. A few weeks after we had moved, it became clear that managing the post office was
not my husband’s kind of thing. He was not enjoying it, and it did not appeal to his
skillset. I took over as subpostmaster and began to manage the shop and the post
office branch, with my husband helping me.
12. The person from whom we had bought the post office lived in the village. I thought
we were doing well enough at managing the branch, and things started to get better
and easier. There were, however, regular problems.
13. Another problem we had involved remittances. We had sent back £500 to Post Office,
electronically. I had done the transaction correctly; I had the receipts and the
transaction log showed that everything had been done properly. At this time, I had
been subpostmaster for a while, and was confident and experienced with the
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management and operation of the branch. However, when we did our cash
declaration that evening, as we did every evening, it became clear that there had
been an issue with the money which we had sent back to Post Office.
14. When we first experienced a problem, I was not worried. I thought that it was a clear
problem which had occurred with the remittance, and that Post Office would sort it
out immediately. I phoned the Helpline to get some guidance. I was told by the
operator that I must have done something wrong. Immediately, it was my fault and it
could not be anything else other than my error.
15. The £500 ‘loss’ was taken from my wages, which Post Office deducted from my salary
at approximately £100 per month. At the time, I was earning below the national
minimum wage in the post office branch, so having the repayments deducted was a
significant blow to our income.
16. In approximately 2014, we were having an issue finding out how some foreign
currency had been deleted from our system. I requested an audit from Post Office,
which took place and was conducted by David Longbottom that October. He was not
interested in the foreign currency whatsoever. He was not interested either in the
£500 loss in remittance which had previously occurred. When he arrived, he went into
our computer systems and started to generate reports to which we did not have
access,
17. A short time later, he told me that there was a shortfall of £1,654.73 which came from
our stamp stock. Months before, we had telephoned the Helpline about stamps that
were shown as stock on Horizon, which we did not have and had never had. The
helpline operator told me casually, to simply delete the stamps from my system.
18. During the audit, Mr Longbottom discovered the deletion of the stamps, which I had
been done on the advice of the helpline as a consequence of a Horizon error. He
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asked me why I had deleted the stamps from my system, and ! told him about the
advice of the helpline. Mr Longbottom re-entered the stamps onto our system, and
told us that we were responsible for them and had to pay Post Office for them.
I told Mr Longbottom that for the amount of stamps in question, both monetarily and
in the number of physical stamps which that value represented, we had to have been
giving stamps away for free, or pocketing the money which we had received from
them. He told me that he knew that my husband and I had not been stealing the
money.
I believe he knew that there was a computer error, but that he knew he could force us
to ‘repay’ the money for the stamps in any event. I refused to pay for the stamps, and
told Mr Longbottom as much. Mr Longbottom telling me that I owed money, and
such a large amount of money, was extremely traumatising. All these years later, I
have a crystal-clear memory of his arrival at my branch and his behaviour. I remember
how matter-of-fact he was when he told me.
I was very angry, absolutely furious. I was very confused why the system had showed
such a large surplus of stock, and eventually I telephoned the stock centre to find out
how many stamps that had been sent to me, and how many I had sold. The amount of
stamps for which Post Office said I was liable was years’ worth of stock for us. I got
nowhere with the stock centre but I was determined that I would not pay for stamps
that I had not received.
By that time, I had joined the Communications Workers’ Union. I had been speaking
to Andy Carpenter, the area manager for Post Office. I had told Mr Carpenter that I
wanted a meeting with him and with my union representative. Shortly before, he
cancelled the meeting with my union representative and arrived at my branch alone.
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23. In approximately the beginning of December, Mr Carpenter told me that we have
given a loan to post office previously, and that the cost of the stamps was going to be
written off against the loan which had not yet been repaid. I had no recollection of a
loan, and certainly a loan of the size which could repay £1,654.73. However, I had
occasionally ‘lent’ the branch from my personal account when we were low on cash,
so we left it there.
24. Looking back, I should not have left it there. If in fact we had loaned the post office
money and it had not been paid back, I should have received that money. Mr
Carpenter’s course of action (which was pushed on us) still left us paying for a large
sum of stamps with our own money. However, he presented it to us as if it was a
kindness. I did not think about this at the time, and I suppose that I was happy for
such a loss to be written off, however it happened. It was pure relief.
25. The issue of the stamps was extremely stressful. I could not sleep, with everything
going around in my head. My husband thought that it was my error which had caused
the loss, but I knew that it was not my fault and could not be my fault.
26. We had still a business to run, and we still had to get behind the post office counter
and serve customers. I was frantic, ringing people trying to get answers and prevent
me being forced to repay. We thought we were going to be forced to repay back such
a large sum of money, and we would have struggled to find the money. I did not know
whether we were going to be forced to find the lump sum, or whether the money
would be taken from my salary, which at the time was below minimum wage and
would have seriously affected our business and our lives.
27.1 was very stressed, very worried, but also incredibly angry. It was the injustice of
having someone come into my business, and tell me that I owed a huge amount of
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money and implied that I had been stealing. I knew that it was not true, but there was
little I could do about it, and all my efforts to rectify the problem (such as telephoning
the stock centre to find out how many stamps I had been sent during my tenure) had
got me nowhere. There was also a significant worry that I would lose my job, and my
business, over the issues I was having.
28. The Post Office did not take any action to recover the debt and I was not involved in
any of the mediation schemes or group litigation.
HUMAN IMPACT.
29. These problems also caused a difficult period in my marriage. My husband thought
that I had done something wrong, and that it could be my fault that there were these
errors, which were causing lots of problems for us and our business.
30. My mood changed during that period; I was stressed and frustrated, as well as
worried about my business.
31. I am still a subpostmaster to this day. My business has now been for sale for over 8
years, with little to no interest. The salary is not enough to warrant the work. I no
longer experience problems with the Horizon system and yet, It is simply not worth it.
We know that who in their right mind would buy a post office? We bought a small
apartment in Hull, which we bought in expectation that the shop and the post office
would sell. That was to be our retirement, but it cannot be sold because nobody
wants to buy it from us. My retirement is being delayed, and we are being forced to
live somewhere we do not want to live, and being forced to do a job that we do not
want to do.
CONCLUSION
32. I would like to see heads roll at Post Office. I do not trust it as a business. I also feel
very strongly that subpostmasters should be put back into the position that they
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should have been in if the shambolic operation of the Post Office had been better,
and the scandal better managed.
STATEMENT OF TRUTH
I believe that the facts stated in this Witness Statement are true.
pated im 3 - 2022
Pauline Coyle
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