By Melanie Newman17 May 2021
Janet Skinner was 35 and a divorced mother of two teenage children in 2007 when she was accused of stealing almost £60,000 from the busy post office she ran on a council estate in Hull.
Last month she was one of 39 former postmasters cleared of similar offences after it emerged the Post Office had failed to disclose that a defective computer system installed at their branches was generating ‘phantom’ transactions. Initially charged with theft, Skinner pleaded guilty to false accounting despite knowing she had not taken the money. Her lawyer had advised this as her best hope of avoiding a custodial sentence.