By Rosi Byard-Jones,
One of the British post office operators falsely accused of embezzlement due to faults in Fujitsu Ltd.'s accounting system said its local unit should be "open and honest" about their role in the scandal.
Speaking to Kyodo News, Lee Castleton described the behavior of staff at Fujitsu's European arm as "not very honorable," after it emerged last week at the public inquiry into the scandal that a Fujitsu manager in a 2006 email called him "a nasty chap" who wanted to "rubbish" the company's name.
In the same email, the Fujitsu Post Office Account Security Team member expressed his desire for Castleton to be "hung out to dry," despite never having met or spoken to the operator himself.
"I'd like (the company) to be open and honest about what they find internally, and let the people of the U.K. know that they're doing something about it," Castleton said in a recent interview.
Two of Fujitsu's engineers, who are key witnesses in the case, are under criminal investigation, with London's Metropolitan Police saying it will conduct a wider national investigation once the public inquiry concludes later this year.
While Castleton said he has no issue with Fujitsu as a whole, he believes its European operations based in Britain need a major overhaul if the company is to take full responsibility.
"I wish that (the company) would allow people to understand the why, who, what, where and when. I think it would make the trauma of the whole journey for the group of victims a lot easier," he said.
Castleton, one of the victims of the scandal portrayed in a new TV drama called "Mr Bates vs. The Post Office" in the first week of January, was made bankrupt in 2007 following a three-year court battle with the government-owned Post Office Ltd.
He has called the accounting system helpline 91 times over 12 weeks between 2003 and 2004 about shortfalls of 25,000 pounds ($32,000) at his post office in Bridlington, Northeast England.
The former subpostmaster was among some 700 post office operators prosecuted for stealing money from the Post Office between 1999 and 2015, after glitches in the Horizon accounting system caused balances at postal stores to appear lower than the actual amounts.
Castleton and his wife bought their Bridlington post office branch in July 2003, and everything went smoothly until they noticed their balance discrepancy of 1,103.18 pounds that December, which he ended up "making good" out of his own pocket.
After the Post Office insisted there were no issues with Horizon, Castleton was suspended in March 2004 and taken to court, where the Post Office pursued him for 321,000 pounds in legal costs.
Two decades later, the Post Office's case against him at Britain's High Court is yet to be dropped and he is still awaiting final compensation, despite receiving some interim payments from the government to cover legal costs.
Not only did the ordeal cause Castleton to go bankrupt, but it came at the immense cost of his family's health and wellbeing.
"We were abused in the street, called thieves," he said. "This led to my wife's anxiety and epilepsy. My daughter was spat at on the school bus and became very anxious. She had a 10-year battle with an eating disorder."
Castleton said he has a problem with blood pressure and has passed out in the past. While his son was not directly affected as he was so young, he will not speak of the Post Office "at all."
"To the subpostmasters and their families...Fujitsu apologizes and is sorry for this appalling miscarriage of justice," Paul Patterson, the director of Fujitsu's European operations, said at the public inquiry last week.
This is only the second time a public apology has come from the company, with Patterson's initial apology on Jan. 16 stating that the organization has a "moral obligation" to compensate the victims.
"They had a moral obligation to do the right thing from the very beginning. Having been found out, an apology is not really very effective. Actions speak louder than words," Castleton said in response.
However, Castleton views the pledge made by Patterson to review the conduct of Fujitsu staff still employed by the company as a positive step.
"I thought Mr Patterson showed empathy," Castleton said. "I am happy he was open with his thoughts with respect to how badly we were treated, and hope it is another significant step towards the end of this."
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Fujitsu responsibility in focus in redress over U.K. postal scandal
