Greater than 2,000 new compensation claims have been made within the final month by individuals who consider they’re additionally victims of the Publish Workplace scandal, a authorities minister has stated.
Publish Workplace minister Gareth Thomas told PJDM Newsnight that new claims got here after the Publish Workplace contacted former sub-postmasters who might have been affected however had not but utilized for compensation.
Most of the greater than 4,000 unique claimants are nonetheless ready for compensation to be paid, together with 92-year-old Betty Brown, who advised the PJDM that the federal government wanted to “get it finished”.
Thomas stated the method of compensation was getting quicker, and being made “much less legalistic, much less adversarial”.
Mrs Brown advised the programme on Monday that she had up to now been provided lower than a 3rd of what she had claimed in compensation.
“We now have waited and waited. Time is getting shorter. We’re getting older,” she stated. “Get it finished.”
She added that she wished a “honest and simply listening to”.
Mrs Brown and her husband spent greater than £50,000 of their financial savings to cowl cash that gave the impression to be lacking from their department in County Durham because of the defective Horizon software program.
She was hounded out of her job and compelled to promote her publish workplace at a knockdown worth in 2003.
Thomas stated he was “eager to search out options” and would meet her and one other former sub-postmaster, Shazia Saddiq, who advised Newsnight she had been provided simply 10% of her declare.
Ms Saddiq ran three Publish Places of work in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, however “misplaced every part” and needed to transfer away from the world the place she lived after she was assaulted in avenue.
The previous sub-postmasters spoke to Newsnight a 12 months after an ITV drama shone a lightweight on the scandal.
Earlier this month, Parliament’s Enterprise and Commerce Choose Committee known as for modifications to the best way compensation was being delivered, because of the ongoing delays.
Thomas stated he was “happy to say” extra victims had been coming ahead and that the federal government was taking a look at methods of dashing up redress.
He stated the quantity of compensation being paid out had doubled within the final six months and the federal government was making an attempt to make the compensation schemes “much less legalistic, much less adversarial”.
Claimants can select to take a £75,000 fastened sum compensation and keep away from a prolonged evaluation course of, which ought to assist the claims be processed extra rapidly, he added.
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, 2025-01-13 23:06:00
