The oldest surviving victim of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal has said the lives destroyed by the affair should “never be forgotten” as she celebrated being made an OBE in the New Year Honours.
Betty Brown, who at 92 is the oldest person honoured in Monday’s list and thought to be the oldest victim of the scandal, was rewarded for seeking justice for subpostmasters affected by the affair.
Ms Brown, told Sky News it was “absolutely wonderful” to receive the honour. She said postmasters had been jailed and some had taken, or tried to take, their own lives, following the scandal, which has been linked to 13 deaths.
It also led to “broken marriages” and “children left neglected” as victims’ “whole lives [were] ruined over the last 20 years”.
She was strongly critical of ministers who had “stood back knowing what was happening, knowing they were at fault and doing nothing about it”.
“That should never be forgotten,” she said. “The destruction that they have done to these lives… that’s what that honour stands for”.
Around 1,000 people were wrongly prosecuted and convicted throughout the UK between 1999 and 2015 as a result of faulty auditing of accounts caused by the Horizon computer programme.
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Ms Brown, from County Durham, was one of the original victims who took part in the group legal action, led by Sir Alan Bates, against the Post Office.
She ran the Annfield Plain Post Office near Stanley with her late husband Oswall from 1985 to 2003, and estimates they lost around £100,000 of their own money to cover the non-existent shortfalls.
She said her hardest moment was when the auditors came on the day her husband had a cancer appointment, where he got “a good result from the specialists”.
Their good spirits were dashed when the visitors told them they were “£3,000 short”, even though they had “only been trading for three hours” on the day in question, and had balanced their books the night before.
Ms Brown said this week’s honour was “wonderful”. “I’ve had the most wonderful Christmas in 20, 25 years,” she said. “Wow. I sat there and enjoyed what Christmas was all about.”
She said she “had money to buy what you wanted for Christmas” and was “coming to terms with not having the anger, and the hurt inside”.
Fujitsu, the electronics giant behind the Horizon software told Sky News it “apologises and regrets its role in the subpostmasters’ suffering” and is “committed to providing full cooperation to the Post Office inquiry”.
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Climber is youngest recipient
The youngest recipient this year is 20-year-old Olympic climbing gold medallist Toby Roberts who has been made an MBE. He was 19 when he became the first British Olympic gold medal-winning sport climber in Paris in 2024.
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Roberts, who was just 19 at the time of his win, said he was “in complete shock” when he opened the letter telling him he’d been honoured after returning from a training trip.
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“It’s pretty surreal to open something like that,” he said. “When I got back, I saw it on the side, and I was like, ‘What’s that?’ And then I opened it”.
Roberts, who began climbing when he was eight, admitted he has “gone through a few struggles” since winning gold but said: “I think I’m on the other side of it now. The sport itself is challenging enough without that weight of expectation.”
