The oldest surviving victim of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, Betty Brown, 93, said King Charles III told her on June 2 at Windsor Castle that the injustice was a “dreadful thing” that “should never have happened.” Brown made the remarks after receiving an OBE for her services to justice, as one of hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongfully prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 because the Post Office’s faulty Horizon software falsely made it appear that money was missing from branch accounts.
Brown, who ran a County Durham Post Office with her late husband Oswall since 1985, was forced out of the business in 2003 after the couple paid more than £50,000 of their savings to cover non-existent shortfalls. She told the BBC she asked the King — who she described as “very knowledgeable all about Horizon” — to urge the prime minister and ministers to ensure that police thoroughly investigate the scandal. “I said to him…would you tell your prime minister and your ministers that justice has no cost…There is no cost to justice. Doesn’t matter what it costs, justice must be done,” she said.
The scandal has been described as one of the widest miscarriages of justice in British legal history. Last week, the commander leading the national police inquiry, Stephen Clayman, said the size of the investigation team would need to double to meet its current timeline for submitting files for potential prosecutions by late next year or early 2028. A government spokesperson said the scandal was “an appalling injustice” and that it was “considering requests for further funding.”
Brown dedicated her honour to “all the sub postmasters that we have lost.” She said she was “honoured and humbled” to receive the OBE and that she had finally “been heard by the system.” However, she emphasized that the fight for full justice is not over. “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 told the BBC.
Brown was one of the original 555 victims who took part in the landmark group legal action led by Sir Alan Bates. After receiving her payout in November 2025, she said the Post Office had “recognised justice” but called it a “pity they took so long.” The latest government data indicates that more than £1.5bn has been paid out to over 12,300 claimants across various Post Office redress schemes. When the first report of the official inquiry was published in July, the Post Office apologized “unreservedly” for the suffering caused to postmasters and their loved ones.