Post Office scandal: Widow of exonerated subpostmaster wants to know why investigator ignored his ‘good record’
The widow of a subpostmaster who was convicted as part of the Post Office scandal says she wants to know why the investigator ignored his “good record” – with her husband having been a police officer for 12 years before he started running the shop in Newcastle.
Marion Holmes spoke to Sky News as she prepares to see Robert Daily, the former Post Office investigator who brought criminal proceedings against her husband Peter, appear before the public inquiry into the scandal today.
Mr Holmes had been a subpostmaster at Jesmond Post Office for 13 years when he was accused of stealing £46,000 in 2008.
He was one of more than 700 subpostmasters who were prosecuted over claims they were stealing from the Post Office – but the missing money was actually due to errors in the Horizon software, which was developed by Fujitsu.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Fujitsu boss apologises to subpostmasters
The ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, which was broadcast earlier this month, has raised the profile of the inquiry and the injustice suffered by the hundreds of subpostmasters.
Mr Holmes’ case went to court in 2010, with the Post Office saying they would drop the theft charge if he pleaded guilty to false accounting.
The former police officer agreed and was given a three-month curfew, where he was only allowed to be out of the house between 7am and 7pm, as part of his community order sentence.
Mr Holmes died of a brain tumour in 2015 aged 68 – six years before he was exonerated in April 2021.
Peter Holmes was exonerated in 2021
Asked by Sky presenter Sarah-Jane Mee on her show The UK Tonight what she wants to hear from Mr Daily when he appears at the inquiry, Mrs Holmes said on Monday: “Why he didn’t listen to the fact that Peter had a good record, an ex-policeman?
“Nobody believed him, I just wish somebody had just listened to him.
“It was obvious he wasn’t guilty… Nobody that knew Peter ever thought that he was guilty.”
Ms Holmes also remembered her husband’s “hurt” after seeing a newspaper article which read “ex-policeman guilty of false accounting”.
She continued: “I think that was what really hurt him because it was just there in black and white.”
Recalling the moment her husband first told her of the allegation against him, Mrs Holmes said: “That was like a bombshell.
“But we never thought that anything would come of it because we knew he was innocent.”
Read more:
Subpostmasters say Horizon system ‘still causing mystery shortfalls’
Fujitsu managed call wrongly-accused subpostmaster a ‘nasty chap’
Police probe to decide on Post Office scandal charges to take two years
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘My business is failing’
Mrs Holmes also talked about the stress her husband was under while he was investigated by the Post Office and the police.
She said: “We knew there was something wrong… my daughter and I could hear him throwing up in the bathroom.
“But when we asked him what was wrong, he said ‘Oh, nothing. I was just coughing.'”
Asked what it was like for her husband, a retired police officer, to be convicted of a crime, Mrs Holmes said: “It just shut him down. Fortunately, the day that we came out of court, a friend said go on to the computer and type in ‘Post Office problems’.
“So straight away we heard of Alan Bates and the JFSA (Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance) and that weekend we had to go down there, they were having a meeting down at a solicitors down in Bedford… we already by then knew that there were several others (who had been accused).
“That helped us a lot because when we sat around the room and everybody told their story, they were almost all identical.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
The real Mr Bates speaks to MPs
Mrs Holmes said she feels “sad” her husband wasn’t exonerated until after his death, adding: “But it can’t be changed, so there’s no point in dwelling on it.”
The widow also said she wishes Mr Holmes was here to see “what is happening now” since the ITV drama raised the profile of the miscarriage of justice, with the hundreds of Post Office scandal victims to be exonerated and compensated.
Business
Vivergo: How US-UK trade deal could bring about collapse of huge renewable energy plant in Hull
The smell of yeast still hangs in the air at the Vivergo plant in Hull but the machines have fallen quiet.
More than 100 lorries usually pass through here each day, carrying 3,000 tonnes of wheat. It is milled, fermented and distilled. The final product is bioethanol, a renewable fuel that is then blended into E10 petrol.
This is a vast operation. It took several years to build, with considerable investment, but it is on the verge of closing down. Management and staff are holding out for a last-minute reprieve from the government but time is running out.
It’s been a turbulent journey. The plant was already being annihilated by US rivals, losing about £3m a month. Vivergo and Ensus, based in Teesside, blamed regulations that enable US companies to earn double subsidies.
They were pushing for regulatory change but then a killer blow: The US-UK trade deal, which allows 1.4 billion litres of American ethanol into the UK tariff-free (down from 19%).
“We’ve effectively given the whole of the UK market to the US producers,” said Ben Hackett, managing director at Vivergo.
“If we were to have the same support that the US industry has, if we could use genetically modified crops, we wouldn’t need that tariff. We would be able to compete. If we had the same energy costs. We wouldn’t need those tariffs.”
The government has the weekend to come up with a plan that could keep the business running. If it fails, Vivergo will begin issuing redundancy notices to its 160 staff.
Ben Hackett
It’s a devastating prospect for workers, many of them live in Hull and are nervous about alternative opportunities in the area.
Mike Walsh, a logistics manager who has been working at the plant for 14 years, said: “It’s not a great place to be at the moment. It’s a very well paid, very high-skilled role and they’ve (Vivergo) given everybody an opportunity in an area that doesn’t pay that well…. The jobs market isn’t as good as what people would like. So it does impact the local economy.”
He called on the government to “help us, save us, give this industry a future”.
His colleague Claire Wood, lead productions engineer, said: “I moved here after a career in oil and gas for 10 years, partly because I want to be part of the transition to renewable fuels. I can see so much potential here and it’s absolutely devastating to know that this place might be closed very, very shortly and that all that potential just goes away.”
Thousands more could be affected. Haulage companies may have to lay off truck drivers and farmers could also suffer a blow.
Vivergo makes bioethanol using wheat. That wheat is bought from farms from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
Claire Wood
The National Farmers Union has sounded the alarm, saying: “Biofuels are extremely important for the crops sector, and their domestic demand of up to two million tonnes can be very important to balance supply and demand and to produce up to one million tonnes of animal feed as a by-product.”
Another bioproduct is carbon dioxide. The gas can be captured and used to put the fizz in drinks or injected into packaging to preserve food.
If Vivergo and Ensus were to go, Britain would lose as much as 80% of its output of carbon dioxide. Supplies are already tight across Europe, meaning this decision could compound shortages across a range of sectors, from meat-packing to healthcare.
The industry is calling on the government to help. Vivergo says it needs temporary financial support but that the government must create a regulatory and commercial environment in which it can thrive.
It says rules that award double subsidies to companies that use waste product in their bioethanol must be changed. At present, these rules are being used by US companies that make ethanol from Uldr – a by-product of processing corn. They argue this is not a genuine waste product.
Read more money news:
Something for everyone in latest economic data
Claire’s falls into administration
Lola’s Cupcakes bakes £30m takeover by Finsbury Food
Another option is to grow the market. Industry leaders are calling on ministers to increase the mandated renewable fuel content in petrol from 10% to 15% and for an expansion into aviation fuels. That would allow British companies to carve out a space.
The government has been locked in talks with the company since June.
It said: “We will continue to take proactive steps to address the long-standing challenges it faces and remain committed to a way forward that protects supply chains, jobs and livelihoods.”
However, the time for talking is almost over.
Mr Hackett said he had no idea how the government would respond but he was firm with his stance, saying: “In times of global uncertainty, losing that energy certainty and supply from the UK is a problem.
“I think what they’re missing out on is the future growth agenda. We’re the foundation on which the green industrial strategy can be built. We make bioethanol that today decarbonises transport. Tomorrow it will decarbonise marine. It will decarbonise aviation.”
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike