When Post Office Limited terminated my contract I sent a file to my local MP Mrs Betty Williams during September 2003 and between then and January 2004 she wrote a number of letters to both the Post Office and Stephen Timms MP the Minister for Postal Services.
The responses she received from the Post Office as usual sidestepped the crux of the problem and failed to address the central queries about liability and access to the Horizon system.
The Minister commented that I could seek legal redress through the courts. On this point I have had numerous comments from senior lawyers that should I take my case to the courts then there is every likelihood that the case would continue to be contested until I ran out of money. An approach often used by major corporations against individuals whereby those with money can effectively buy the result.
Also a warning to those with legal insurance which I actually had in place, or thought I had. My policy was a subpostmaster policy promoted by the National Federation of Subpostmasters. The catch is, you had to be a subpostmaster before you could have a policy and to be a subpostmaster you had to sign the Post Office contract. Though when you try and use the legal insurance you are told that the contract was signed before the policy came into effect and therefore it did not cover the dispute about the contract. Even though you had to sign the contract to be eligible for the policy.
In January 2004 my MP informed me that based upon the replies she had received, there was nothing further she could do at that time.
It was later in that year, September 2004 when I wrote to Martin O'Neill MP who was Chairman of the DTI Select Committee which oversaw the Post Office. I sent a full file of all the documentation to date and have proof it was received. That correspondence and subsequent follow up letters were ignored and I could not even obtain an acknowledgement that I had written to them on this issue. Further to this I again wrote to my MP asking if she would make an enquiry on my behalf as to when I might receive a response from the DTI Select Committee. This she did, but they even refused to answer her.
