Call centres' 240 cries for help a day

POST Office staff received 240 calls a day about the flawed Horizon system, it is claimed.

- LUCY THORNTON

One customer service worker who dealt with branch managers, many of them in tears, said bosses told them the scandal was down to "user error".

Hundreds of postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after being falsely accused of stealing money unaware the IT problem was widespread across the country.

Two ex-call centre workers agreed to speak to the Mirror anonymously.

One told us she quickly realised the computer system was dodgy after working for the Post Office customer service office through an agency.

The ex-supermarket worker, then 20, was given two weeks' training and said she felt helpless. "The system was buggy. I used to dread the balancing she said. "The system would crash across the country from time to time."