Andy Griffith

STROKE BEFORE CHRISTMAS Pete Murray @CraftyGori54267 had a stroke 5 days before Christmas. @PostOffice had already stopped his pay, so at least it was consistent. Pete Murray ran two branches on the Wirral, Grove Road in Wallasey and Hope Farm Road in Great Sutton. From October 2014 the Post Office said thousands of pounds kept vanishing from Hope Farm Road and demanded £65,000 in total. He paid £1,000 a month. Very kind of them to allow instalments... Nobody told Pete Murray that Martin Griffiths, who ran Hope Farm Road before him, had taken his own life after the Post Office chased him over missing money. A staff member mentioned it after the sale. Full disclosure is clearly a Post Office strength... Some days £2,000 went missing, some days £8,000, and once £17,000 while he was away for 3 weeks. Pete Murray says he rang the helpline, the accounts team and the security team. Security told him again and again not to trust his own staff, who had worked there for decades. He rang another team in tears and asked for someone to come out. An auditor came for 20 minutes and never opened the computer. World class support... His contract manager Paul Williams never answered his calls for help, Pete Murray says. He wrote to the office of the then chief executive Paula Vennells and got an acknowledgement. To keep paying, he took out £10,000 in bank loans and borrowed from his dad and a friend. Family loans are the Post Office's best kept payment plan... On 1 November 2018 five Post Office staff arrived for a surprise audit across his two branches and suspended him. Pete Murray says they left coffee cups and bakery wrappers in his office and chatted about holidays and new company cars while he could not afford a weekend away. He says one auditor, told about Martin Griffiths, said he hoped Pete Murray would not do the same. A deeply caring profession... Both branches stayed shut over Christmas and his pay stopped for around 3 months. A solicitors letter arrived headed Post Office Ltd versus Peter J. Murray. On 20 December 2018 the stroke took the use of his arm for a while. He has said he was drinking heavily and felt suicidal. The Easter trip to see his children's grandparents in Vietnam, their first since moving to the UK in 2011, was cancelled. They had already told their friends. Merry Christmas from head office... The branches reopened in February 2019 after retraining he was promised would last a week. He got 2 days, and the auditor cut each to under 4 hours because of hair and MOT appointments. Priorities. Pete Murray was not one of the 550 or more postmasters in the Bates case. He says the 2019 High Court rulings helped him settle his own claim and he received compensation. He said in 2024 that he still lives with PTSD and dark days. In 2020 the Post Office told the Liverpool Echo @LivEchonews it offers personalised support to every postmaster and wants a genuine commercial partnership. I am sure £1,000 a month felt very personal. The government owns 100% of the Post Office through the Department for Business and Trade @DBTGovUK, so the owner shares the blame. This August Pete Murray published a 50 chapter book, The Making and Breaking of a Subpostmaster, which Nick Wallis @nickwallis wrote about. He says the culture at the Post Office has still not been addressed.