I N S I G H T

POST OFFICE PUT HER IN A MENTAL WARD Jess Kaur ran a small branch called Lazy Hill Post Office in Aldridge, near Walsall. In 2009 the @PostOffice accused her of stealing £11,000 and charged her with 36 counts of theft. Here is the part they leave out of the press release. The card machine she used was faulty. It charged some customers twice. The Post Office decided the second charge was Jess stealing money. They never admitted their own equipment had failed. She went into her police interview with no lawyer. She thought telling the truth would be enough. During a break she was told she was the only person this had ever happened to, and if she admitted guilt she could be back at work the next day. She admitted it. Hundreds of other subpostmasters were being told the exact same line at the exact same time. A judge eventually threw the case out after Post Office representatives conceded her equipment was faulty. By then the damage was permanent. Jess Kaur had a complete mental breakdown. She was sectioned. She tried to take her own life twice. Doctors gave her electroconvulsive therapy. It stopped the crisis. It also wiped out every memory she had of her own childhood. While this was happening, people spat on the floor of her shop and smashed her car windows because the local paper had already printed that she was a thief. The case was dropped. Nobody gave her childhood back, and nobody restored her reputation while it actually mattered. Years later she is still on medication and still living with PTSD. Her story became the character Saman Kaur in the @ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, played by actress Krupa Pattani. Getting believed only after a TV script dramatised your breakdown is a strange kind of justice. Jess Kaur has said publicly that Paula Vennells, the former Post Office chief executive, should be prosecuted. The Post Office is 100% owned by the state, so the responsibility does not end with one former boss. The government supervising this organisation carries its share too. The Post Office chose to protect its own numbers over a real person, then let the public finish the job it started. This is one branch, one town, one file, out of hundreds. Sources: @itvnews, 23 May 2024 @ITVCentral, 23 May 2024 @ExpressandStar, 9 Jan 2024 and 4 Mar 2025 @ShropshireStar, 9 Jan 2024 @nickwallis, ongoing Post Office scandal coverage

I've spent months documenting NHS whistleblowers. Most people miss these stories. They disappear fast. So here in one place, my BEST 10. A thread. 🧵