SIGN OR FACE PRISON, THEY SAYS A single dad of three phoned his mother to borrow cash. @PostOffice had given him a few hours, which is how it likes to describe a payment plan.. His name is Peter Worsfold. He ran Muirtown Post Office and a convenience store in Inverness from 1997 to 2002, and he says Horizon, the Post Office computer system built by Fujitsu, left him paying over £37K of his own money for shortfalls he could never trace. He alleges his training was two days in a cold conservatory behind a pub, with about 10 people including the trainers. A warm welcome to the digital age. He says Horizon gave him no way to look back at anything he had entered and held its data for only 42 days. Error notices then arrived weeks or months later with no evidence, and he was expected to cover the gap. Receipts are clearly for amateurs. The shortfalls became so regular that he began to suspect his own staff. He sacked two of them and says he still feels guilty. He has apologised to them, so at least one party in this story has manners. In September 2001 a £20K shortfall appeared. He says the Post Office told him in November, he had no way to check it, and repayments came out of his pay. The police could shed no light on where the money went. The Post Office had already chosen who would pay, a rare burst of efficiency. In February 2002 an audit showed a further £2K to £3K gap. He says the auditors started before the lottery takings were counted and would not let him take part. He was suspended, which is one way to end a discussion. Then two men from Post Office Security came to his home. He says they told him they had the same jurisdiction as the police, cautioned him, and refused him a solicitor. A silent friend was welcome, because every interrogation needs a plus one. He says they warned him of charges for false accounting, fraud and theft, and of prison, while he was raising three children alone. Their offer, as he tells it, was to sign a statement admitting false accounting and pay the shortfall, and the other charges would be dropped. He had a few hours. His mother and her partner lent him the cash, he handed it over and signed, and he says he was never given a copy of what he signed. Paperwork clearly flows in one direction at the Post Office. He says he was told no further action would follow if he admitted and paid, and the Post Office ended his contract after he repaid, citing false accounting and fraud. He says it never took him to court and only threatened to, so credit for restraint. He had bought the post office and shop in 1997 for £65K and says he spent about £30K refurbishing them in 2001. When the post office closed, the footfall dropped. He says he borrowed about £43K on credit cards, paid about £27K in interest, remortgaged his home and later sold £30K of stock for £6K. A restructuring, in corporate language. He says he worked from 6am until 11pm or midnight, driving a taxi, running newspaper rounds and keeping the shop afloat, while his eldest daughter looked after her younger twin brother and sister. He has never been on holiday with his children. He says passengers in his cab asked why he never went to jail, and friends cut him off. The Post Office brand really did look after his reputation. He says his managers and the helpline told him he was the only one affected. In early 2015 he read a @DailyMail article and learned otherwise. Another 554 only ones had joined the group case against the Post Office, and he joined them. Because he was in that group case, he was shut out of the Horizon Shortfall Scheme. The government says much of the 2019 settlement went to the firm that funded the litigation, leaving the group worse off than peers in the shortfall scheme. Winning turns out to be a risky business. On 11 May 2022, aged 77, he gave evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry @PostOffInquiry in Glasgow and called for full compensation with interest, plus compensation for 22 years of hardship. It took 22 years for anyone to take notes. In September 2023, aged 78, he told the Press and Journal @pressjournal that he lives on the state pension and is scared to spend money. He said small interim payments get frittered away, so he wants a lump sum he can invest, and he said more of the group die each year. Full and fair redress was promised, with the delivery date left as a surprise. Sir Wyn Williams, who chaired the inquiry, reported in July 2025 that the Post Office kept pretending its data was always accurate, and that a number of Fujitsu and Post Office employees knew Horizon Online had bugs, errors and defects. He called the Post Office approach to settlement offers unnecessarily adversarial. Fujitsu said it welcomed the report and is talking to government about a contribution to compensation. How kind of Fujitsu to welcome the findings. His group has its own compensation scheme, run by the Department for Business and Trade @tradegovuk, which Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds @jreynoldsMP now leads under a new name. In April 2026 the minister said nearly 90% of claims had settled, final applications closed on 31 July 2026, and the scheme formally closes on 31 December 2026. I found no public record showing whether Peter Worsfold has received a final settlement. I also found no public response from the Post Office to his account of the visit to his home. Silence, apparently, is still a premium service. The Post Office says it is sincerely sorry and wants victims to get justice and redress as swiftly as possible, and says it has not brought private prosecutions since 2015. Post Office chair Nigel Railton, the floor is yours. Sorry is a wonderful word and it posts for free. Peter Worsfold has been on hold with the Post Office for over 20 years. His call is important to them. Sources @InvCourier @pressjournal @LBC @PA