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Post Office scandal may have led to more than 13 suicides, inquiry finds

First report from Horizon IT hearings lays bare ‘disastrous’ human impact as 10,000 people seek compensation

The 162-page volume one report from Sir Wyn Williams, the retired judge who chaired the hearings, looks at the “disastrous human impact” on the more than 1,000 post office operators wrongly accused of taking money from their branches because faulty software showed a shortfall. Photograph: Guardian VideoIn the report, he said: “I am persuaded that in the difficult and substantial claims, on too many occasions, the Post Office and its advisers have adopted an unnecessarily adversarial attitude towards making initial offers, which have had the effect of depressing the level at which settlements have been achieved.” Millie recounted that she became the target of bullying at school, where she was asked: “Didn’t your Dad steal loads of money or something?” At the age of 17, she was suffering from depression and was diagnosed with anorexia, and was forced by illness to “take a year out” at university.

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