Post Office scandal: Blackpool sub-postmaster had to take out a loan to make up £19,000 Horizon shortfall

The shortfall accumulated over more than a decade at an average rate of several hundred pounds per week, but despite constant calls to the Horizons system helpdesk, Peter Collins says nobody from the Post Office would acknowledge there was a problem.

Peter, who was sub-postmaster at Grange Park for 34 years from 1983 and also a former Blackpool councillor and magistrate, made up for the shortfalls from his own pocket and the business account week after week from the time Horizon was introduced around the turn of the century until he left the business under the Post Office resettlement scheme in 2017.

Peter's embarrassment at the shortfall caused by the Horizon system problems was such that it was only after the TV drama Mr Bates v The Post Office was broadcast - almost seven years after his retirement - that he felt able to tell his son and daughter about the circumstances he had encountered.

"They were certainly shocked," he said. "I just couldn't do it at the time or since up to now. It was too embarrassing for me.

"The only way to keep the books in the black was to make up the difference myself and that false accounting went on for years.

“If we had been audited, it would have been spotted and I would have been prosecuted.

“I had to keep doing it to avoid the embarrassment of being in the red. As it goes on, you wonder what is causing the shortfalls and where the money is going but no-one at the Post Office would listen to event a suggestion there might be something might be wrong with the system.

"Fortunately, an audit never came but when I was finishing in 2017, as the office I was running was closing and moving to a new site, I knew an audit would happen so I borrowed £19,000 to make up for the shortfall which had accumulated over the years and then paid it back shortly afterwards out of my resettlement compensation.”

Peter, now retired and living in Lincolnshire, says one example of the Horizon system going awry came soon after its introduction when he was dealing with a customer and the transaction showed up on the computer as ‘sent to cash’ which implied the transaction was complete.

"But the same transaction came back on as if had never happened and I couldn’t understand why,” he said. “I rang the helpdesk and they just told me to put it through again, never evening suggesting there might be a computer error, so I did and the system was that amount down, which had to be made up.”

Peter, who holds an MBE for his services to the community in Blackpool, served as regional president of the Federation of Sub-Postmasters and tried while in that office to point out to higher officials within the Post Office that there was a problem with the Horizon computer system.

"But it got me nowhere – they just wouldn’t listen and out of embarrassment and the desire to ensure the books were balanced, I had no choice but to turn to false accounting.

"It is great that the Mr Bates TV drama has shone the spotlight on this and the incredible miscarriage of justice for the hundreds prosecuted, but I reckon there were thousands of others like me who went through all the stress of shortfalls and finding a way to make the business work while nobody from the Post Office would listen.”

Life after the Post Office

Peter retired in 2017 shortly after his 70th birthday and looked back on a career which has seen him fight off armed robbers, stand as a councillor, receive an MBE for his community work and launch a new scout group.

Over his 34 years at the Post Office in Chepstow Road, he saw many changes take place on the Grange Park estate - and made many friends as well.

He took over the post office and newsagent’s in 1983 in order to secure his future after being made redundant.

Peter says: "I came to Blackpool in 1973 from Leicester and worked for Streets bakers and confectioners until they went in liquidation.

"I bought the Grange Park Post Office to be self-employed so I could never be made redundant again, and I think that’s why I have always had a lot of empathy with people on Grange Park, because I understand how frustrating it is not to be able to work.

"So I was always going to be here for the long haul.

"I enjoyed the work, and the people were more than just customers."

But it was certainly not all been plain sailing, and Peter was targeted twice over the years by would-be robbers.

The first incident was in 1993 when he was threatened by attackers wielding a gun and a lump hammer.

He said: "I used a chair like I was a lion tamer to fight them off and they ran off.

"The police never found them. The following week I was protected by a number of other petty’ criminals on the estate - they seemed to be saying you can’t do this on your own patch’. The second incident happened in 1999. I was making the papers up and this man came in and offered me a bag and said fill it’.

"I threw a pile of Mail on Sundays at him to distract him, and then hit him on the head with a walking stick.

"It didn’t put me off in the least from running a Post Office though."

In 2008, Peter was elected to represent Park ward on Blackpool Council for the Conservatives following a by-election.

His victory at the polls was a measure of his standing on the estate, which has traditionally been a Labour seat.

Although he only stayed on the council for three years, his impact was such that he held the senior position of cabinet member for children’s services.

But in 2011 he lost out to Labour at the local elections.

However it did not put him off helping the community, and along with the late Maureen Horn, who headed up the Grange Park Residents Association, he helped set up the 4th Blackpool Scouts on the estate.

Peter received the MBE in 2004 for services to the community of Blackpool.

On his retirement, he told The Gazette: "It is a wrench to leave. When I put the notice up to say what will be happening, I thought this is the end’ and it will be emotional.

"There are about 40 people, customers, who have been with me for 34 years, getting their newspapers. I will miss that contact and the banter that goes with it.

"These are people who are loyal to their community and who are proud people. The vast majority are brilliant and look after each other, When we have had any charitable event or fundraiser they cough up like no tomorrow, especially for young people."

Peter vowed to spend more time with his two children and four grandchildren, and moved back close to his roots in Stamford, but said: "I will never lose my roots in Blackpool, particularly with the work I have done in scouting."

Grange Park Post Office relocated to the Londis Store at Cunliffe’s Garage on Poulton Road under the Post Office Network Transformation programme, under which Peter to find a new site for the Post Office within a mile of where he operated.