North Yorkshire former sub post master say victims of Horizon scandal are "traumatised"

Victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal are "traumatised" and it is "like a war" to try and get compensation.

Lee Castleton bought a post office in Bridlington in 2003 but the next year he was suspended after an audit and told to repay the £25,000 that was missing.

He was eventually taken to the High Court by the Post Office where he had to represent himself. When he lost his case, the Post Office pursued him for legal costs of £321,000 which bankrupted him.

"It's been very difficult to get people to believe"

Mr Castleton who now lives in Scarborough says: "It has been very difficult to push our cause."

"We are just people from your village shop or your local post office. It is really hard to draw up support and it has been very difficult to get people to believe."

"I would like people to contact their MP and put pressure on people to help us. The group has always needed help. "

"If there is one thing I have learned, it is that support makes this work. It is very lonely being the only one, as the Post Office would constantly tell each of the victims.

"Now we are together in this and we just need to keep walking forward no matter what the punches are, no matter how hard the war gets. We just need to keep pushing."

He's also calling for compensation: "I'm not saying huge amounts of money or anything like that, I'm just talking about what was taken really, nobody is asking for anything other than that, we're not that type of people else we wouldn't have been post masters in the first place."

Meanwhile, Downing Street says Rishi Sunak would back an investigation into stripping the former Post Office boss of her CBE, over the Horizon scandal.

Paula Vennells's honour could be revoked if a committee makes the recommendation - which is then submitted by the prime minister to the King.

Ministers are discussing how to clear the names of 100s of former staff wrongly convicted of fraud due to faulty IT software.

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