A widow whose husband was taken in the horizon scandal of the post office requests compensation payments so that the victims are accelerated after receiving her husband’s repair offer after her death.
Terry Walters, 77, died in February after years of poor health. He was one of the former subpostes who brought the post office before the Court in the historic case led by Sir Alan Bates, which helped to exhibit the scandal.
Despite the submission of a complete financial compensation request more than a year ago, he died without receiving all the money due to him.
The government says that it has doubled the amount of payments made to the former sub-maids.
A few days after losing Terry, his widow Janet received a letter making a compensation offer – well below the amount that the couple had claimed.
She describes the offer as a “slap opposite” and says that she invited her to share their story publicly for the first time.
“Enough, that’s enough,” she said.
Terry used his redundancy money to take over the Hockley post office in Stockport in 2005.
But less than two years later, he was suspended for alleged deficit.
He was never allowed to come back behind his counter and his contract was terminated the following year for thousands of pounds of losses that did not exist.
He and his wife Janet had to sell their house and live from a leased accommodation.
“To have a large institution such as the post office, comes to accuse you of doing something – it was devastating,” explains Janet, “and humiliating.”
Now, before Terry’s funerals, Janet has decided to share his story – and urges the government to ensure rapid payment for others who are still waiting for compensation.
“Fairly enough,” she said. “We have experienced promises all this time,” she adds. “17 years of someone’s life is long.”
There are no official figures for the number of victims died before receiving complete compensation, but according to Times, the number had reached more than 250 at the beginning of 2024.
Terry had received an interim payment, which, according to Janet, helped them to manage as his health decreased. But she insisted that Terry would have been “on the Moon” if he had lived to receive her complete compensation. She thinks that receiving money in the years preceding Terry’s drop in health could have made a huge difference in their quality of life.
“We could have done the things we had wanted to do all these years, to buy a suitable house perhaps, to offer us a great vacation, to go out and to do things,” she said.
According to the most recent figures, in the program created to provide repair to those of the dispute order of the original group, 227 of the 492 eligible applicants are still waiting for complete and final compensation.
The government claims that 407 offers have been made for 425 people who have so far made complete complaints.
With so many others waiting for their complete compensation, Janet now says that she plans to write to King Charles.
“There must be someone in high authority that can say, well, it’s time for it to be finished,” she says, “so people have the chance to continue their lives.”
Janet says that she will only disperse Terry’s ashes when her compensation is paid in full, even if she knows that the process will probably take many months to settle.
A spokesperson for the business and trade department said that he had doubled reparation payments “under this government” and that he made offers at 89% of global applicants within 40 days of receiving a complete claim.
They added that more than half of the eligible applicants have now set their complaint.
About 698 million pounds sterling were paid to more than 4,400 applicants in 4 diets.
