On his 10th birthday, Adi Misra’s mother told him that they would celebrate later. Unbeknownst to Adi, his mother was wrongfully accused of stealing £75,000 from the Post Office and was sent to prison that very day. Adi thought she was in the hospital and only found out the truth eight years later. Now 23 years old, Adi says he “hated” his mother for leaving him so abruptly. Speaking to the BBC, Adi says all the Horizon victims deserve compensation.
Adi’s mother, Seema, was the sub-postmistress in West Byfleet, running the village post office and shop at the “heart of the community”. However, on Adi’s 10th birthday, everything changed. Adi’s parents dropped him off at school, telling him they would be back to collect him later when they’d celebrate together. Unknown to Adi, his parents were going to court, where his mother was handed a 15-month sentence and sent to Bronzefield women’s prison.
As a child, Adi remembers feeling confused when the atmosphere changed at school, and his friends no longer wanted to hang out at his parents’ shop after lessons. Seema was among hundreds of UK sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses wrongfully convicted after the Post Office told them there were shortfalls in their accounts. Despite her release from prison after serving four-and-a-half months, Seema, who was pregnant with her second child, was still labelled a “pregnant thief”. Her family was ostracised by the local community, and she became so scared about leaving the house that Adi had to start walking home from school alone.
It wasn’t until he was 18 years old and in his first year at university that Seema finally told her eldest son that she had been in prison. Only after searching her name did the full extent of what his mother had been through become apparent. For Adi, her Court of Appeal acquittal in 2021 is simply not enough. He wants everyone affected by the Horizon scandal to be fairly compensated for all they have lost. “The Post Office was our everything,” Adi says. “My parents deserve all that again.
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