Greater than 2,000 new compensation claims have been made within the final month by individuals who imagine they’re additionally victims of the Put up Workplace scandal, a authorities minister has mentioned.
Put up Workplace minister Gareth Thomas advised Victoria Derbyshire on ORIONEWS Newsnight that new claims got here after the Put up Workplace contacted former sub-postmasters who could have been affected however had not but utilized for compensation.
Most of the greater than 4,000 authentic claimants are nonetheless ready for compensation to be paid, together with 92-year-old Betty Brown, who advised the ORIONEWS that the federal government wanted to “get it achieved”.
Thomas mentioned the method of compensation was getting quicker, and being made “much less legalistic, much less adversarial”.
Mrs Brown advised the programme on Monday that she had to date been supplied lower than a 3rd of what she had claimed in compensation.
“We’ve waited and waited. Time is getting shorter. We’re getting older,” she mentioned. “Get it achieved.”
She added that she wished a “truthful and simply listening to”.
Mrs Brown and her husband spent greater than £50,000 of their financial savings to cowl cash that seemed to be lacking from their department in County Durham because of the defective Horizon software program.
She was hounded out of her job and compelled to promote her submit workplace at a knockdown value in 2003.
Thomas mentioned he was “eager to seek out options” and would meet her and one other former sub-postmaster, Shazia Saddiq, who advised Newsnight she had been supplied simply 10% of her declare.
Ms Saddiq ran three Put up Workplaces in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, however “misplaced all the things” and needed to transfer away from the world the place she lived after she was assaulted in avenue.
The previous sub-postmasters spoke to Newsnight a yr after an ITV drama shone a lightweight on the scandal.
Earlier this month, Parliament’s Enterprise and Commerce Choose Committee referred to as for modifications to the way in which compensation was being delivered, because of the ongoing delays.
Thomas mentioned he was “happy to say” extra victims had been coming ahead and that the federal government was taking a look at methods of rushing up redress.
He mentioned the quantity of compensation being paid out had doubled within the final six months and the federal government was making an attempt to make the compensation schemes “much less legalistic, much less adversarial”.
Claimants can select to take a £75,000 mounted sum compensation and keep away from a prolonged evaluation course of, which ought to assist the claims be processed extra rapidly, he added.