HE WAS DESTROYED

Ordeal of former policeman blamed over 'missing' £46k

- JEREMY ARMSTRONG

MARION Holmes' late husband Peter was an ex-police officer so honest that he once drove 20 miles back to a restaurant to pay for the dessert they had forgotten to put on his bill.

He was a respected sub-postmaster of 13 years and in charge of the Jesmond Post Office in Newcastle when his world came crashing down in 2008.

Marion says her husband was "destroyed" when he was arrested over a "missing" £46,000 due to the faulty Horizon computer system.

When his case came to court in 2010, he was offered a plea bargain. The Post Office said they would drop the theft charge if he would plead guilty to false accounting.

Marion said: "As a then 69-year-old diabetic former police officer he did not want to go inside.

IMPACT

"He knew what kind of life he would have, so he jumped at the deal, but had to live with the cost.

"We later learned they had no evidence of theft because he had not taken any money. But they still used that in the plea bargain.

"How low can you stoop?" Peter was handed a three-month suspended jail sentence.

Marion said: "The impact on the family was devastating. His name was all over the papers, the headline was ex-policeman found guilty of false accounting".

Peter died in 2015, aged 74, six days after a brain tumour diagnosis, still haunted by the case.