93-Year-Old Post Office Scandal Campaigner Receives OBE at Windsor Castle and Urges King Charles to Press for Further Prosecutions

Betty Brown, 93, received her OBE at Windsor Castle on Tuesday after campaigning for sub-postmasters affected by the Post Office scandal. The King told her the scandal was a "dreadful thing" and "should never have happened," she said. Mrs Brown asked King Charles III to speak to the prime minister about ensuring those responsible for the wrongful prosecutions are investigated by police and brought to justice.

There is no cost to justice. " Mrs Brown and her late husband Oswall ran their County Durham Post Office together from 1985 until she was forced out in 2003. Her husband paid more than £50,000 of their savings to cover shortfalls that did not exist.

The branch had been one of the most successful in the region before she had to sell it at a loss. Mrs Brown was one of the original 555 victims in the group legal action led by Sir Alan Bates against the Post Office. She said she felt she had finally "been heard by the system" and was "honoured and humbled" to receive the OBE.

Mrs Brown noted that many people assume victims have received compensation. "A lot of them think we've had compensation, we haven't had a penny compensation. We've had what they call redress, which means they've given back the money to us that they stole from us," she said.

Stephen Clayman, the commander leading the national police inquiry, said the size of the investigation team would need to double to meet its timeline of submitting files for potential prosecutions by late next year or early 2028. A government spokesperson described the scandal as "an appalling injustice" and said the government is considering requests for further funding.

5bn has been paid out to over 12,300 claimants across the various Post Office redress schemes.

Hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of stealing or false accounting between 1999 and 2015 after the faulty Horizon IT system made it appear money was missing from branch accounts. Mrs Brown was one of hundreds affected by what has been described as one of the widest miscarriages of justice in British legal history.