‘I’m tortured’: widow of Post Office victim anguished he died before clearing name

Exclusive: Vivienne Hammond says she learned what her husband had suffered in secret for 20 years by watching ITV drama

The widow of a sub-post office operator accused of misappropriating funds in the Post Office Horizon scandal has spoken of her anguish that he died before his name could be cleared.

Vivienne Hammond, 88, told the Guardian that she was traumatised to discover what her late husband, Dennis, must have suffered in secret during the last 20 years of his life when she watched ITV's dramatisation of the scandal, in which more than 2,500 post office operators were wrongly accused of theft because of a glitch in a new accounting software system. The series, Mr Bates vs The Post office, has led to new calls for victims to be exonerated.