Former postmaster Noel Thomas will never forget the 'trauma' he endured at the hands of his former employer and the 'life lessons' he received at HMP Walton
Daughter Sian looks on as an emotional Noel Thomas celebrates having his conviction for false accounting overturned by the Court of Appeal in April, 2021 (Image: Yui Mok/PA Wire)
A grandfather caught up in the Post Office IT scandal said he will reject an offer of compensation for the ordeal his family and others suffered. Anglesey's Noel Thomas, 76, was one of more than 700 sub-postmasters convicted for theft and false accounting.
He was wrongly accused of stealing £48,000 from the Post Office due to flawed information from the organisation’s Horizon computer system. Mr Thomas was disqualified as a councillor, jailed for nine months (he was released early for “good behaviour”) and his daughter was forced to sell her Malltraeth home to pay legal costs.
But he said many others suffered far worse in a scandal that was to become the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice. So far, 86 convictions have been overturned and these are now to be offered £600,000 each in compensation.
Mr Thomas, whose conviction for false accounting was overturned in 2021, said: “The fight will continue. I have friends up and down the country who lost a fortune and it’s only fair they get it back. One couple in Shrewsbury spent three months living in a van because they lost everything – the Post Office took it all from them.”
Kevin Hollinrake, the Post Office minister, accepted that for some people the compensation would not be enough. What was on offer now was available with “no ifs or buts”, he said.
Some £21m has been paid in compensation so far to postmasters with overturned convictions. Those who have already received initial payments or settlements for less than £600,000, will be paid the difference.
Mr Thomas, who lives with wife Eira in Gaerwen, spent his 60th birthday in HM Kirkham, an open prison near Blackpool. He had dedicated his life to the Post Office, first as as postman, then helping Eira run Gaerwen’s post office.
Noel looks through legal papers with grandson Arthur Huw during his 15-year fight for justice (Image: Arwyn Roberts/North Wales Live)
Although he pleaded guilty to false accounting, he only did so to escape the more serious charge of theft – and to prevent legal costs mounting still further. “We sold our house and Post Office to our youngest son and moved in with our daughter in Malltraeth,” he said.
“It was the best thing we ever did. Although the Post Office chased our son for years, to sell the house to pay legal costs, they failed. Many others were not so fortunate, and lost everything.”
Sentenced to nine months in prison, Mr Thomas was initially wrongly sent to the “hellhole” of HM Prison Liverpool, Walton. He said he was locked up for 23 hours-a-day for more than a week.
“We were let out for 30 minutes for dinner and 30 minutes in the evening,” he said. “It was like being in solitary confinement, though I did have a Scouser for company in my cell.
“It was quite an education for me. On the landing one day, a prisoner asked me if I had a “skin”. I thought, well of course I have a skin, we all do. I later learned he meant a Rizla paper for a smoke.
“Many of the men there were hardline criminals. But they were good to me. They looked after me and I learned many life lessons I wouldn’t have learned elsewhere.”
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His education continued when he was transferred to Kirkham prison. He spent 12 week there, working in the prison’s greenhouses, before being released early on condition he wore an electronic tag.
“I had to be home each day by 7pm,” he said. “But as Malltraeth lies in a valley, the signal was poor and the tag often failed – we frequently got knocks on the door at 1am or 2am to check I was there.
“At Kirkham, the young lads taught me how to get around the tag system, to leave it at home while you were out. But of course I never did!”
Mr Thomas was among the first to join a support group set up by Alan Bates, the Craig-y-Don sub-postmaster who took on the Post Office and, against the odds, won a multi-million-pound legal case. This summer, filming for a major ITV drama took place in Llandudno that will showcase the uphill battle Mr Bates and others faced. hoped “Mr Bates vs the Post Office” will be on screens in 2024.
Joining the group was a “relief” from the isolation of thinking he was the only victim, said Mr Thomas. Having been stripped of his Post Office pension, earned over 42 years, he secured a job as a Yodel delivery driver before landing a job at the Holland Arms Garden Centre, Gaerwen.
In April 2021, he was among dozens of postmasters whose names were finally cleared by the Court of Appeal. However the legal machinations took their toll and Mr Thomas said his family still suffer “nightmares” almost two decades after their ordeal began.
“The current inquiry should have been over by now,” he said. “But the Post Office keeps putting obstacles in the way and it looks like it will continue into 2024. It will come too late for some people, many of whom were made bankrupt and have yet to receive any kind of compensation.”