LCSC obtain charity status

Hello

LCSC or Lost Chances represents the adult children of former SubPostmasters caught up in the Post Office Scandal, one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history. We are a group with a mission, to redress the chances that were taken from us when we were growing up, by the Post Office and Fujitsu. 

Under the current law, children like us are regarded as ‘secondary victims’. Although we were caught up in the Post Office Horizon scandal, we do not, as individuals, qualify for compensation. So, for example, educational opportunities lost because our parents were bankrupted meant in some cases we had to leave school early to work and help out and were unable to finish A levels or go to college. Such lost chances are not included as claimable in any compensation package that our parents may apply for.

As you may be aware, even five years after 555 Supostmasters won their High Court Case in 2019, compensation for 300 of them has still not been paid. Sir Alan Bates himself has three times rejected an offer that was less than 30 per cent of his claim. Meanwhile, we adult children have fought for greater public awareness of the impact this had on us.

On the 19th January 2024 Paul Patterson, Managing Director of Fujitsu Services Ltd, Europe gave a statement to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry that he would ‘meet with the SubPostmasters and their families’ to engage in conversation about redress. Our founder, Katie Downey took him up on this. Katie emailed him to request a meeting and subsequently founded the Lost Chances for Adult Children of SubPostmasters group (LCSC).

 Lost Chances now represents over 160 adult children of Subpostmasters affected by the heinous actions of the Post Office and Fujitsu in covering up what they knew about the bugs and defects in the Horizon computer system. 

After months of campaigning and a great deal of patience, LCSC met in London with Fujitsu’s lawyers and Paul Patterson on August 8th 2024. A small number of us shared our stories which included very personal and harrowing details of how we have been affected by this scandal and how, as adults, we continue to feel the effects. Some of us could not help but break down in the meeting despite the fact that we were being supported by fellow child victims. At one point the Fujitsu lawyer had tears rolling down her cheeks. Paul Patterson said several times how moved he had been. Of course relating our stories can sometimes mean reliving them. That is what is meant by PTSD -which some of us suffer from.

 (You can find some of the stories by following the links on our website to media coverage) * https://www.lostchances.co.uk/ 

We have also submitted a proposal to Fujitsu that outlines how the financial assistance of this hugely wealthy global company, could help us regain some of those chances we lost as young children. But, despite a promising meeting where we were told we would hear back within a matter of weeks, so far – many, many weeks later, there has been silence. So we are looking to a wider public - a public shocked by our parents experiences - for a little help. 

We have a goal to raise an initial £10,000 which is the threshold we need so that we can get professional assistance to apply for charitable status and allow us to move forward in our campaign for justice. Once approved as a charity, we aim to dedicate ourselves to fundraising and to expand our charity to work with other groups who may have synergy with us, in order to help raise awareness of the plight of children classified as secondary victims, and the impacts on them in the many other scandals we know about, from Hillsborough to the Infected Bloods, so we may turn our collective trauma into something positive of benefit to a wider society. 

We want to emphasise that we are not taking anything away from our mums and dads in doing this, and certainly not any funds. We do not qualify in our own right for compensation as such so can not apply to the Post Office compensation schemes as individuals or as a group. We are more aware than most of just how our parents suffered because we lived through it Many of us, out of necessity and love, became the carers of our parents when we were far too young. We saw them through wrongful imprisonment, financial ruin, depression, trauma, mental breakdown and consequent physical illness. 

Now, we are seeking acknowledgement that children need always to be considered, and that true justice cannot be realised unless this happens. To this end, our strapline is particularly relevant : ‘You can’t harm a parent without hurting a child’. 

Below and on our website you can find the range of opportunities that we have lost. Hopefully with funding, we can go some way to regaining some of those lost chances. Some of the opportunities we, as a charity would look to fund would cover: Educational Grants, Creative career development training opportunities, Travel bursaries, Counselling, Education & Scholarships, Mental Health Support, Creative & Expressive Arts Programs, Mentorship & Career Development, Work Experience & Internships, Innovation Grants & Entrepreneurship Support, Community Service Projects, Financial Literacy Workshops, Reimbursement for expenditure on counselling and therapy and Financial reimbursement for money spent supporting parents. 

Thank you for reading this. 

 Katie Burrows, Vice-chair Lost Chances for Subpostmaster Children (LCSC)