Post Office scandal compensation cannot cover ‘hell I’ve been through’, says wrongly convicted former postmaster

London’s Metropolitan Police has launched a criminal investigation into the Post Office’s handling of the Horizon IT scandal.

More than 700 branch managers were wrongly prosecuted after faulty accounting software made it look as though money was missing. Hundreds were bankrupted or jailed. At least four people took their own lives.

50 new potential victims have come forward this week after watching an ITV drama on the scandal. Scotland Yard says it is now investigating “potential fraud offences” arising from the prosecutions, including the money recovered from sub-postmasters.

One of the wrongly convicted postmasters was Vijay Parekh. He was falsely accused of stealing over £70,000 and spent four months in prison after his barrister advised him to plead guilty.

We spoke to him earlier and I began by asking him if he could take us back to the time when this nightmare first began to unfold.