‘I was humiliated, terrified’: more Post Office IT victims speak up

theguardian.com:

A former Post Office worker has recounted how she pleaded guilty on the day of her daughter’s birthday, while another was sentenced as her granddaughter was born, in a day of harrowing testimony of victims wrongly prosecuted for stealing in the Horizon IT scandal.

Siobhan Sayer, 54, told a public inquiry on Monday that she was barred from seeing her distressed six-month-old daughter as investigators visited her home in 2008 seeking £18,000 in funds missing from her Post Office business.

“They came in, asked if they could search the property and I said I had no issue as I had nothing to hide,” she said. “They went through kitchen draws, the filing cabinet [and] tipped my underwear drawer upside down while joking about where I hid the money, saying it would be much easier if I told them where it was. I was humiliated, terrified. I had a six-month-old daughter. I wasn’t allowed to see her. She started crying and I wasn’t allowed to leave to go and see her. That ended me. I had to end the interview as I couldn’t continue any longer.”

Sayer said that during the lengthy investigation she felt “generally harassed and intimidated”, including regularly finding someone parked outside her house. Ultimately, on the advice of lawyers, she pleaded guilty to charges of false accounting in 2010 – on the day of her daughter’s birthday.

“I went to court that morning thinking I wouldn’t be coming home,” said the mother-of-four. “Thinking it would be left to Dad to discuss [my incarceration] with them. I was advised I would receive a custodial sentence. I went to court that day with a case packed not knowing if I would be coming home.”

Pauline Thompson, 72, also recalled being told by lawyers to “pack a bag” on the day the judge handed down her