Oldest Post Office scandal victim Betty Brown honoured with OBE

Pritti MistryBusiness reporterPA MediaBetty Brown mentioned she was accepting the honour on behalf of all of the victims of the Submit Workplace Horizon IT scandalThe oldest surviving sufferer of the Submit Workplace Horizon IT scandal has been appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her companies to justice after campaigning in opposition to wrongful prosecutions.Betty Brown, 92, ran the Annfield Plain Submit Workplace in County Durham along with her late husband Oswall from 1985. However they have been compelled out in 2003 after spending greater than £50,000 of their financial savings to cowl non-existent shortfalls.She not too long ago obtained her long-awaited settlement from one of many authorities’s compensation schemes.Mrs Brown instructed BBC Breakfast she accepted the popularity within the New 12 months Honours listing on behalf of all of the victims of the scandal.”Each one in every of them ought to have an OBE,” she mentioned. “Each one in every of them for what they’ve [Post Office] put us by way of and what now we have stood strong and devoted for. I did it for justice.”The Horizon IT system was accountable for greater than 900 sub-postmasters being wrongfully prosecuted due to it offering incorrect data. Hundreds extra, like Mrs Brown, have been compelled to make up for the alleged losses at their branches throughout the UK.The scandal has been described as one of many widest miscarriages of justice within the UK.Mrs Brown mentioned she was “honoured and humbled” to be made an OBE, including she had lastly “been heard by the system”.Mrs Brown isn’t the primary Submit Workplace campaigner to be recognised within the New 12 months Honours listing. A 12 months in the past 4 former sub-postmasters turned campaigners have been honoured for his or her companies to justice, and Sir Alan Bates – who was featured within the ITV drama “Mr Bates vs The Submit Workplace” – was knighted in 2024.Betty Brown and her husband spent greater than £50,000 of their very own cash to cowl shortfalls which didn’t exist The 92-year-old was one of many authentic 555 victims who took half within the landmark group authorized motion led by Sir Alan in opposition to the Submit Workplace.Her department had been one of the profitable within the area however finally she needed to promote it at a loss.Speaking about what occurred, she beforehand mentioned it “completely destroyed my entire life”.Each Mrs Brown and Sir Alan have been a part of the Group Litigation Order compensation scheme, and people claimants have been supplied the choice of taking a hard and fast sum of £75,000 or pursuing their very own settlement.After receiving her payout in November 2025, she instructed the BBC: “Ultimately, after 26 years, they’ve recognised justice,” and added: “pity they took so lengthy.”A authorities spokesperson mentioned: “We mustn’t ever lose sight of the Horizon scandal’s human affect on postmasters and their households, which the Horizon inquiry has highlighted so properly.”Betty Brown has been a fierce advocate for postmasters and this authorities has now paid out over £1.3bn to greater than 10,000 victims.When the primary report of the official inquiry into the scandal was revealed in July, the Submit Workplace mentioned it apologised “unreservedly” for the struggling “precipitated to postmasters and their family members”.