Former Post Office sub-postmistress Janet Skinner has accused the Government of waging "damn-right war" on victims of the Horizon IT scandal, claiming they are creating a "bigger problem" than the one that already exists.
Sir Alan Bates has claimed the Government is "shortchanging victims" in its compensation scheme, calling it a "kangaroo court".
Writing in the Sunday Times, Bates claimed he was given a "take it or leave it offer" amounting to less than half of his original claim, around 49 per cent of what he is owed.
The long battle to fight for compensation for victims continues on after 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted due to a faulty Horizon accounting system, making it look like money was missing from their accounts.
Janet Skinner has hit out at the Government for 'waging damn right war' on Post Office victims
GB News / PA
Discussing the compensation deal on GB News, former Post Office sub-postmistress Janet Skinner detailed her own battle for compensation an revealed she was sent "14 pages of questions to answer".
Skinner explained: "I think the deal is on an individual basis, so each individual claim is assessed differently, and although we were all part of the 555 originally, we're also represented by individual legal representation.
"But they are offering quite small amounts, and I think what they're also doing is especially with my case individually, I received 14 pages of questions to answer."
Recalling her own case, Skinner revealed how the stress of the situation resulted in her "paralysed from the neck down", and was told she would "never walk again".
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Sir Alan Bates accused the Government of 'shortchanging victims' of the Post Office scandal
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Skinner said: "Mine was £59,000 back in 2006, and I was imprisoned in 2007. I was looking at imprisonment again in 2008, and I became ill ten days after the case had concluded. I ended up paralysed from the neck down, and I was actually told I would never walk again.
"It's just an ongoing process. This isn't full and fair, this is just literally damn-right war against each individual person. And the questions that they're actually issuing to each individual claimant is a reduction, it's how much they can reduce that claim by and how much money they can save for themselves."
Hitting out at both the Government and the Post Office, Skinner claimed that they "haven't accepted any form of accountability" and are "victimising victims" who have already been through so much.
Skinner stated: "People think that they've accepted some form of accountability and they actually haven't, or else they wouldn't be treating the victims the way that they are.
Skinner told GB News that the Government are creating an 'even bigger problem' than the one that currently exists
GB News
"They are victimising victims that have already gone through an immense amount of pressure, stress, and deaths, and all they're doing is creating an even bigger problem, so you're going to end up with the scandal on top of a scandal."
When pressed by Tom on how it would be best for the compensation to be decided for the victims, Skinner agreed that offering individual deals "would be fair".
She concluded: "It would be fair to have individualised compensation claims. It's fair to have each individual case be assessed individually because there are some people that haven't suffered anywhere near others.
"For me, I've had five medical reports. It's taken them two years to actually say that what happened to me physically was a result of stress caused by what they did. Two years of fighting that for them to then turn around and said, there you go, there's 14 pages of questions I need you to answer.
"The Government are well aware, and there was a very strong advocate from the Labour Government, before they took power. And it seems that since they've been in power, they've not assisted us in any way."
