A WOMAN attempted suicide twice in prison after being convicted of stealing from her first job out of school – the Post Office.
But, she survived, and now Tracy Felstead could be the youngest of the 983 to get her conviction quashed.
RexJanet Skinner and Tracy Felstead (right) spoke of their experience on ‘This Morning’[/caption]
PA:Press AssociationHMP Holloway was a prison for adult women and young offenders in north London[/caption]
The PM called the Horizon scandal ‘one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history’
It comes as Rishi Sunak says the Government is looking to right “one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history” and the Horizon IT Public Inquiry continues.
Tracy was only 19 when she was convicted in 2002 of stealing £11,500 from her customers at the Camberwell Green Post Office in south London.
She was sent to Holloway Prison for three months- once home to Rose West and Myra Hindley – where she saw the corpse of a dead inmate.
She told ITV: “You put your trust in the justice system that everything will be okay, and it just didn’t, you couldn’t defend yourself.
“It’s about getting justice now and obviously the Inquiry are doing that and we’re trying to find out who knew what, when, and why this happened.”
Four postmasters committed suicide and 33 have since died during the 20-year campaign for justice.
Tracy’s story was not featured in the hit ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office which brought the scandal back into the spotlight.
But, she did tell the DailyMail what it was like being sent to Britain’s toughest women’s jail.
Now, 36, Tracy says she was depressed in prison and tried to kill herself twice and to day this she can’t take doors slamming because it reminds her of jail.
“He [the judge] said, ‘You’ve stolen from old-age pensioners’. And I actually said in court, ‘I’m not saying sorry because I haven’t done anything wrong’. And he said, ‘Okay, I’m sentencing you to six months’.”
Tracy says her family also took out loans themselves to try and repay the £11,500 for her to avoid prison time.
“None of us are rich. They said they just wanted to stop me being sent to prison, but I was furious. Why should they be paying for money I had not taken?”
Tracy says: “The governor said, ‘What are you doing here? A girl like you shouldn’t be here’.”
She says she continues to have nightmares and flashbacks of prison and has suffered in her post-carceral life.
In the years that followed her home was repossessed, her marriage collapsed and she has been diagnosed with PTSD.
Meanwhile, a senior Post Office executive has been recorded on tape saying postmasters prosecuted during the Horizon IT scandal “downright stole” the money.
Chied spin doctor Richard Taylor said some ransacked cash to fund their businesses, according to an investigation by TalkTV.
In the recordings, Mr Taylor admits that some postmasters had been “hard done by” amid the scandal but insists that others were guilty.
Rishi Sunak this week said a new law will be introduced to make sure those wrongly convicted are “swiftly exonerated and compensated”.
He also announced an “upfront payment” of £75,000 which will be made available to hundreds of postmasters.
Ex-Post Office boss Paula Vennells handed back her CBE on Tuesday “with immediate effect” after more than one million people signed a petition.
The Post Office has been contacted for comment.
RexTracy Felstead said she tried to kill herself twice[/caption]
GettyTracy has now been diagnosed with PTSD following her three months inside HMP Holloway[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
