Lee Castleton OBE

Ex spm and very proud of the group. I accept Dm.

[Monsieur Cholet @stugoo17]

#PostOfficeScandal #PostOfficeInquiry

Counsel to the Inquiry Emma Price of @5essexchambers
has said the remaining Volumes of Sir Wyn's Final Inquiry Report are in the ‘final writing stages’ and will be published ‘very soon’.

https://t.co/y9ZDKCd4N3

[Nick Wallis @nickwallis]

If you live in or near Cranleigh and fancy coming along to see my new Post Office talk tonight (Wed 11 Nov) FER FREE, I have two tickets which can be yours. PM me asap. First come, first served.

[Mohamed Omer @Mohamed_GOP]

@ArturNadol7566 @CastletonLee @PostOffice What the post office did to innocent people managing the post office is not forgivable. The management ofcthe post office should be held personally responsible and thise who were wrongly accused need justice and compensation

[Karl Flinders @Karlfl]

The long goodbye has a but more to go. Fujitsu’s 30-year relationship with the Post Office is finally coming to an end, with an exit deadline of September 2027. #PostOfficeScandal https://t.co/tPWzcgGgrL

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

FUJITSU'S EXIT, IN THE SMALL PRINT

Post Office's contract notice: Fujitsu keeps running Horizon from 1 April to 30 November 2027.

Why no one else? A change of contractor "cannot be made for technical and economic reasons".

Extensions since 2019: nearly £200m, per @Karlfl.

[Karl Flinders @Karlfl]

Fujitsu's Post Office scandal financial contribution shield will soon be turned off soon, but it has earned huge sums of public money while it was active #PostOfficeScandal https://t.co/85hWt7V6Ah

[Humpty Bumpty 🇬🇧🇺🇸 @RealHumptyB]

@SeemaMisra_OBE Relatably saddened to read this, Seema. Are you one of the SPMs with an outstanding claim? Who has charge/control of your case?

cc @CastletonLee
#PostOfficeScandal

[Seema Misra OBE @SeemaMisra_OBE]

16 years on it still hurts.

On my eldest son’s birthday, I was sentenced to prison 8 weeks pregnant
A day of joy became a lifelong reminder of injustice.

Where is the accountability for PO scandal?

Plz ask your MP and share your suggestions. We must keep fighting for justice.

[Lee Castleton OBE @CastletonLee]

Thank you. Very kind. It’s a team effort.

[Malcolm Simpson @Malcolm22206844]

@ArturNadol7566 @CastletonLee @PostOffice Lee and his family have always acted with dignity and integrity and they are giants in this struggle. Total respect to them as they continue to stand up to Post Office, lawyers and Civil Servants who have never had any of these qualities.

[Lee Castleton OBE @CastletonLee]

I agree.

[AntiBS @Ive_R_Mectin]

Go get em @CastletonLee a medal is all well and good but you deserve to be compensated! @RupertLowe10

[Lee Castleton OBE @CastletonLee]

It’s a team effort.

[Jackie Pearce @tarot_jack]

@ArturNadol7566 @CastletonLee @PostOffice A proper hero. Thank you, Lee.

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

Christopher Head OBE @chrish9070 took over the West Boldon Post Office near Sunderland in 2006 at 18, the youngest sub-postmaster in Britain.

By 2014 the state owned @PostOffice said he owed £88,000. It questioned him under caution, searched his home, then dropped the case because there was no evidence.

It still chased him through the civil courts for the same £88,000.

With his name damaged locally and no work available, Chris rebuilt his life in Greece.
He later received his OBE for campaigning for more than 400 other sub-postmasters. He said the honour does not pay the bills.

This is the State owned, Post Office scandal.

Britain hands out medals for surviving things it should never have allowed.

SOURCES
@itvtynetees @SunderlandEcho @BBCNews

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

Lee Castleton @CastletonLee rang @PostOffice for help 91 times in 12 weeks. Horizon kept showing losses he couldn't explain.

Their answer was an audit, a suspension, a demand for £25K and then bankruptcy.

He sold his home in 2003 to buy a small branch in Bridlington. He couldn't afford a lawyer at the High Court, lost, and got hit with £321K in costs.

His daughter was spat at because people thought her dad was a thief.

Paula Vennells later told the Inquiry his treatment was unforgivable. She also accepted she probably signed off the costs that bankrupted him.

Lee is now going after the Post Office and Fujitsu for up to £8M, saying the 2007 judgment was obtained by fraud.

In May 2026 the Court of Appeal let it go ahead as one trial.

Nearly 20 years on, he's still fighting.

Sources: @BBCNews @lawsocgazette @ComputerWeekly

[Peter Davies @MastermanDavies]

17/1/24 iNews: PO “Capture” IT accounting system from the 1990s pre-Horizon was similar & led to SPM prosecutions!
1998 SPM Steve Marston was convicted for theft & false accounting with “Capture”. There are others too!
https://t.co/knGJWNPxp3

[Karl Flinders @Karlfl]

Fujitsu has landed another government contract – a £9m deal to support the UK’s Emergency Alerts Service. Despite its pledge to pause bidding for public sector work amid the Post Office scandal, contract renewals remain fair game. #PostOfficeScandal https://t.co/hUuEVHqvgp

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

DON'T LET ANYONE PUT WORDS IN YOUR MOUTH

The Horizon inquiry's own counsel told expert witnesses that Fujitsu's Gareth Jenkins admitted changing crucial court evidence at the Post Office's request, during wrongful prosecutions of subpostmasters.

https://t.co/CoCWBEW6nU

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

THE RETIRED LAWYER WHO DID PARLIAMENT'S JOB AND WON A JOURNALISM AWARD FOR IT

Dan Neidle (@DanNeidle) retired at 49 from Clifford Chance, one of the world's most powerful law firms, where he spent nearly 25 years as head of tax. Most people in that position go quiet and enjoy the garden.

Neidle started a non-profit think tank and spent his retirement doing what journalists, regulators, and parliament couldn't be bothered to do.

In July 2022, he published detailed analysis showing that Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi (@nadhimzahawi) had used an offshore structure to avoid approximately £3.7 million in capital gains tax on his YouGov stake. Then he showed Zahawi had lied about it.

Zahawi's lawyers at Osborne Clarke sent him threatening letters marked "confidential" and "not for publication," demanding he retract the allegations within 24 hours or face defamation action. They told him it would be "improper" and a "serious matter" to publish the letters.

Neidle published the letters.
He also published more detailed analysis. Then he referred the lawyers to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

@TheSun then revealed Zahawi had secretly settled with HMRC for the exact amount Neidle estimated, plus a 30% penalty. Total: nearly £5 million. Rishi Sunak sacked Zahawi in January 2023 after an investigation found he had breached the Ministerial Code by failing to disclose he was being investigated by HMRC while serving as Chancellor.

Neidle won Investigation of the Year at the British Journalism Awards 2023. He is not a journalist.

The SRA referred Osborne Clarke partner Ashley Hurst to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, marking the first time a solicitor had been referred to the SDT for abusive tactics in libel litigation. In December 2024, the Tribunal found Hurst guilty of misconduct and fined him £50,000.

A retired tax lawyer spotted what a sitting Chancellor was hiding, refused to be silenced by his legal team, was proved right in every detail, won a journalism award, and then got the silencing lawyer sanctioned.

Zahawi got a pension. Neidle got a prize. The lawyer got a fine. The public got to watch.

This is what accountability looks like when institutions won't do it themselves.

Sources: @guardian @BBCNews @FT @TheSun @PressGazette |

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

THE OTHER POST OFFICE SCANDAL

Steve Marston, 42, emptied his £23K savings to cover missing money. @PostOffice repaid his loyalty with a criminal record, and almost 30 years later it is still fighting him.

Steve Marston ran the Heap Bridge branch in Bury from 1973 and never had trouble with paper accounts. In 1996 an area manager pressured him into using new software called Capture, the system that came before Horizon. He says auditors told him Capture does not make mistakes, a brave claim about software from 1996.

Shortfalls of £5K to £10K kept appearing. He paid the gaps from his savings and inflated his weekly cash figures to balance the books. Auditors then turned up unannounced, closed the branch, left him out of the audit and told him it was all his responsibility, which certainly speeds things up.

On advice that pleading guilty would keep him out of prison, he pleaded guilty to theft and false accounting over an alleged £79K shortfall. He received 12 months probation, then bankruptcy, a new town for his family and the loss of his friends. Full service, with the bankruptcy included.

Steve Marston blamed himself for 25 years, which was very convenient for everyone else. Then a government review by Kroll found a reasonable likelihood that Capture caused shortfalls. On 27 March 2026 the Criminal Cases Review Commission sent his case to the Court of Appeal, saying there is a real possibility his prosecution was an abuse of process.

Post Office chairman Nigel Railton told MPs on the Business and Trade Committee in January that all Capture convictions should be overturned by law. The chairman wants them all overturned, so naturally the Post Office is contesting all three pre-Horizon cases sent to the Court of Appeal, according to @ComputerWeekly and Karl Flinders @Karlfl.

@SkyNews reports it also sought a two month delay in Steve Marston's case, which shows real respect for a 70 year old's time, and the court refused. Nigel Railton later wrote that the Post Office must concede or oppose, with no third way, and that evidence unrelated to Capture may keep these convictions safe. Christopher Hodges, who chairs the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board, replied that the conflict of interest is blatant, since the Post Office was the original prosecutor.

The Post Office says it is only assisting the court, with remarkable energy. Neil Hudgell of Hudgell Solicitors, who represents many Capture victims, says the Post Office hides behind an unnamed spokesperson. Steve Marston asks how taxpayers' money can compensate victims and also pay the Post Office to fight those clearing their names.

The government owns the Post Office, and a minister told the Lords the Post Office was the original prosecutor in a Capture case, so the Department for Business and Trade can relax. Ownership clearly comes with no responsibilities.

Steve Marston is 70 and the Post Office is in no hurry.

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

@Farnsworth100 @andyburnham @stugoo17 @CastletonLee @chrish9070 @Janetsk20073533 @forensicgod @CarolynWright19 @stillawake @LizWebsterSBF Thank you for sharing Elaine Hood's story. The harm didn't stop with her. Her daughters and the whole family paid a price too.

Redress and accountability shouldn't depend on how long people can hold on. These families have waited long enough.

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

MUM CONVICTED, DAUGHTERS SENTENCED

Somebody shouted thief through Elaine Hood's shop door. @postoffice shouted it first, in court, with a straight face.

Elaine ran a post office and newsagent with her family in Allestree, Derby. In 2003 she was convicted of theft over about £19,000 on evidence from a computer system called Horizon, built by @Fujitsu_Global. It showed cash missing from branches where none was missing, which makes it a fascinating choice of star witness.

Around 1,000 postmasters were wrongly convicted between 1999 and 2015, and Post Office prosecuted them itself, a bold way to mark your own homework.

Elaine pleaded guilty and got 120 hours of community service and £950 in court costs.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission @ccrcupdate sent the case back in March 2023, and the conviction was quashed that September after Post Office conceded the appeal. Justice took 20 years, so nobody can say it rushed.

Elaine's daughter Kate Burrows was 14 when the panic attacks started. She still has them today. She has been in and out of therapy for most of her adult life, and the bill has so far gone to nobody responsible.

Kate's sister Rebecca Richards was a teenager in that courtroom. She says she watched her mum in the dock, handcuffed to a guard, not knowing if she was coming home. She says two investigators sat in front of her dad and her, sniggering and saying they had got this one.

Rebecca says her eating disorder escalated because food was the only thing she could control. Kate says she has had very dark thoughts of suicide. Elaine kept serving customers after that shout through the door, in the same village, to the same neighbours. The boardrooms have shown no such nerve.

Kate and Rebecca now help run @LostChances2024, a charity for the children of postmasters.

In summer 2024 Kate met Fujitsu Europe boss Paul Patterson, who said he would look at ways to help. By December 2024 the group had reportedly received an offer of counselling and nothing else. How thoughtful.

Paul Patterson has since moved to chairman of Fujitsu UK to keep managing its response.

In July 2025 inquiry chair Sir Wyn Williams found that at least 13 suicides may be linked to the scandal and 59 people contemplated suicide. He also found that people at Post Office and Fujitsu knew the system had faults, so the prosecutions were a real team effort.

In March 2026 the Department for Business and Trade @tradegovuk announced a redress scheme for family members. Lost Chances helped design it, and the payment levels were still under review.

Fujitsu agreed in January 2024 that it had a moral obligation to contribute. By March 2026 MPs found it had made no interim payment and agreed no figure, and it still holds government contracts.

In May 2026 Fujitsu UK was reported to be paying staff bonuses, and Post Office extended its Fujitsu contract by £41M to March 2027. Fujitsu says it is engaged with the government on its contribution. A moral obligation, payable in installments of nothing.

Fujitsu is engaged with the government. Kate has been engaged with panic attacks since she was 14.