Devastated widow says husband 'hit rock bottom' after false Post Office accusations

The devastated widow of a sub-postmaster who took his own life after being falsely accused of theft has described how the Post Office and their faulty computer system ruined her family's life. Martin Griffiths, who ran a post office in Great Sutton near Ellesmere Port with wife Gina, was one of hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a flaw in a computer system Horizon.

The wrongful convictions and accusations, made between 2000 and 2014, were recently examined by a public inquiry, which started earlier this year. Mr Griffiths became one of the victims in 2009, when he was accused of stealing over £60,000.

The Post Offices’ accounting computer system, Horizon, had documented a shortfall in income. The shame of being accused of theft was devastating to Mr Griffiths and in September 2013, he killed himself aged just 58.

READ MORE:Post Office IT scandal 'ruined life' of Bolton subpostmaster who suffered heart attack at 33

In yesterday's (April 25) BBC Panorama documentary, his widow Gina emotionally described how the Post Office's faulty computer system had ruined her family's life. “Martin and I married in '82, we had two children,” Gina Griffiths told BBC Panorama.

"He liked all sorts of sports. He was a very good sportsman, he loved cricket.

“We decided to look into buying the post office and Hope Farm Road came on the market. And we decided to go for it.

“It was a very busy post office, and we successfully ran it for many, many years, 13, 14 years, and then all of a sudden, money started going missing. We had to pay the money back in order to carry on trading, otherwise, they would have closed us down.

“They hounded him. They persecuted him. Didn't seem to be any end to