voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. the headlines this morning — the metropolitan police saysl it's investigating possible - fraud linked to the it scandal which led to the conviction - of hundreds of sub—postmasters and sub—postmistresses. from the age of 13, my childhood was gone. it was nonexistent. it all happened in whispers. it all happened like stigma. it all happened by pointing fingers. and we had no explanation, that was the problem. it's the biggest miscarriage ofjustice in a generation, which dozens ofjournalists have exposed, and even actors like me played their part.

did they find the problem? £26,000 has gone missing. you what? 26 grand. in this programme, in the midst of a public inquiry into what went on, i'm going to meet people who are still dealing with the fallout of being involved in the post office scandal. we were spat at. paint stripper poured on my car. it just felt as though it was one thing after another. it means coming to terms with decades of trauma, but across the country, people are trying to move on, to reclaim their lives. so, if you walked up there past your house now, how would that make you feel? you couldn't do it? mm—mm. really? wow.

i'm will mellor, and i've been an actorfor over 35 years and played lots of different roles. but when i played the part of lee castleton in mr bates vs the post office, i realised that this role was more important than any other. in 2004, lee castleton was accused of stealing more than £20,000 from his post office branch, but the losses were down to a faulty it system — horizon. thanks to playing lee in the series, we've become friends. so, obviously, because i played you in the drama series, i know your story, and you were

completely innocent. yeah. what i wanted to ask, cos, obviously, people who've seen the drama know that, is how...how did that affect your family? just pulled everyone apart, really. you become very focused on the small group — being my two children, my wife and myself. um... you just try to survive. you probably bury it a little bit. you try to protect the kids more than anything. yeah. as i learned playing lee as a character, he couldn't protect himself or his family and, in 2007, he found himself in court. the claimant is entitled - to their costs in the case and, accordingly, mr castleton is ordered to pay all- post office limited's costs . in the total sum of £321,000.

so, do you still feel that burning anger to the post office? i do have an anger, um, in me, but it's not like that, because i think it's been so long, i just want to... i don't want to be the person that suffers for the rest of my life. i want to get on and live a little bit more and enjoy my life a little bit more. and i think my kids deserve to have dad back fully. whilst lee's story is out there, there are so many other victims of this scandal who have never spoken out before, labelled as thieves.

unlike many of the others who've been accused, shann is still working behind a post office counter. you must love... you must love it round here. i do. i enjoy my customers. i don't enjoy the job any more. ah. my customers are fabulous, thejob not so much. this, for you, was a place where you'd come and you thought, "this is my future." first few years, yes, that was lovely. customers are great. they took us into their hearts. and then the losses started... right. ..and basicallyjust ruined our lives. this was my and my daughter's dream. we were going to have a lovely life together. she was only eight when we moved to cornwall.

in the last decade, shann says she's paid out thousands to balance the books after the computer showed false losses. i can only prove about 5,000 or 6,000, but all the little bits that i've paid back, probably over £20,000. and that was all my daughter's university money. she had to go and get a job across the road. i took a second job across the road. i rented out the ground floor of my house to a hair salon to get extra income because we had no money, basically. and i was shocked to discover that shann is still using the horizon system. you're still getting shortfalls now, today? yes. itjust baffles me head why they wouldn't just go, like, scrap the system. but they can't because there's nothing else. how would we work? this is the trouble. there's no alternative now, you see, cos they did away with all the paperwork. and shann�*s not the only one. we've heard from dozens of sub—postmasters who said they're still having ongoing

problems using horizon. losses tend to be written off now. shann says she's not asked to pay money back any more, but that doesn't lessen the stress. i don't think people in this country know that we still use the same system. when i have to press that button on a wednesday, i feel sick. so, it's still an anxiety issue every single week. with the help of two law firms working with the victims, hudgell solicitors and howe & co, we've heard from many sub—postmasters who have experienced similar mental health issues. hundreds have told us they're still suffering from depression, anxiety and sleeping problems because of their experiences dealing with the post office. so, those three windows, that was vinay�*s room,

vinay�*s and mine. the middle room was where the boys used to sleep. and this window is where the lounge used to be. chhaya patel is visiting the post office she was forced to leave with her husband vinay and their family eight years ago. when we initially took over the post office running,

it was a really pleasant way to start our business because we were the only post office for another five or six miles, so the community spirit was there. the couple started to experience losses on horizon around the same time vinay started to become seriously unwell with kidney disease and other health conditions. the couple think the pressure was a factor. with stresses building up, they reported the problems over the phone. no—one could help them, least of all fujitsu, who ran the helpline. the helpline would then just say to us, "sorry, mrs patel, the error is yours. "you've got to make it good." and this happened every time the error happ... every time the error happened, it doubled up and it doubled up and it doubled up, and we looked into it over and over again and we couldn't

see where we'd made the error. chhaya was accused of stealing more than £33,000 and an investigation started. they then noticed some of their regular customers began to turn on them. where people we were serving normally says, "hello, how are you? " this and that. but we found we were walking on one street and they are coming across, they'll cross the road and go away from us. in fact, some of the younger generation sometimes would, if you're walking in the park with the dog, would shout at us, you know, "oh, my dad told me "they've stolen the older generation's pension." it all happened in whispers. it all happened like stigma. it all happened by pointing fingers. and we had no explanation. that was the problem.

chhaya and vinay�*s experiences are not uncommon. hundreds of sub—postmasters we've been in touch with have encountered customers being less friendly with them or say they'd been verbally attacked. the reaction from chhaya and vinay�*s village was far from unique to west sussex. when was it that you realised there was a problem, or that you'd been accused of something?

when the police knocked on me door. really? so, you didn't know nothing was wrong? no, no. and theyjust came and knocked on your door? yeah, yeah, on me birthday. it was your birthday? yeah. and what was that like? horrendous. i'd never been in trouble with the police in me life. her story hit the headlines. that was the first one that went in the paper, which...| didn't look after that one, any that was shown to us. "worker alleged to have preyed on the elderly." wow. look at that for a title. yeah. mm—hm. "po clerk denies stealing money." "post office clerk on trial over bills." "worker alleged to have preyed on elderly." yeah. see, that headline... mm—hm. you know, with your photo. after an eight—day trial, stephanie was acquitted and the judge said she could leave court without a stain on her character.

i should have been happy at that point that i got found not guilty. i got not guilty — not guilty all the way, all 17 counts. that was it. ijust wanted to go back to a normal life. it didn't work that way. but from the moment she left court, stephanie's life would never be the same. that evening, we're getting the children to bed, heard a crash through the back window. it were a brick, and a man screaming at the front of me house. we were spat at. paint stripper poured on my car. it just felt as though it was one thing after another. there was a time that i could walk down the street and go for a loaf of bread and be out three hours because you were chatting to people, you know? i'd literally scurry to the shop and back because you would open the shop door and the place would go silent. things got so bad that stephanie's partner even hung

a bedsheet up at the window to put an end to the gossip, but the taunts didn't stop. i wasn't known to be...a wrong �*un, you know? i was stephanie. i was, you know, little old stephanie. but you do feel as though the whole village is against you, to the point of we felt as though we were driven out. i didn't want that. i wanted to move on. the family felt they needed to escape. they felt they could no longer stay. we did it. we packed our house up — three kids, two dogs, a house that we'd been in for 13 years — in three days. just give ourselves a break, a fresh start. but mentally, stephanie's scars haven't healed. she's slowly retreated and rarely goes out, and thoughts of returning to her old street fill her with sheer terror, so much so that she's never been back. it's been 16 years.

i thought eventually, maybe in a couple of months. a couple of months turned into a couple of years. i can't even leave the house, let alone... you know. i'm just... i'm going to take this to my grave. it's going to be a reoccurring thing that it's constantly in my head. although not convicted, she says she's become a prisoner in her own home, her own mind, and is seeking compensation through solicitor neil hudgell. he represents many of the wrongly—accused sub—postmasters, and has also addressed a parliamentary committee about the post office scandal. stephanie's case is sort of quite an exceptional one because it does make you... or it should make you pause for thought. she was found not guilty — good outcome for her. she could get on and move on with her life. it didn't happen that way. you know, stephanie's not really worked since. she's become an introvert. she's been confined to a sort of narrow social circle

where her life has been effectively ruined. and that's all because the community continued to believe in this whole thing about no smoke without fire. but stephanie's considering finally facing her demons by trying to go back to her old street. i hope by going back to pelton and talking about it is yet another stage in my life of closure and getting on with my life. i need closure. i need closure for my own mental health, my own sanity. we'll catch up with her later to see if she goes. but it's notjust the accused themselves — the scars can even bleed into the next generation.

so, this was the start and end of our childhood. yeah. essentially. katie and thomas are the children of fiona watson, who ran a post office in gainsborough with their dad. how long has it been since you actually have been here? 21 years, i think. yeah. 21 years? 21 years. yeah. it's since closed down, but when they moved there, aged eight and ten, life was good. it was... ..filled with so much love and happiness. we'd won the post office of the year award. we'd not been there for a huge amount of time and to win something like that was quite a big deal.

people used to come into the post office just to have a chat. they didn't come in foranything, really. they'd just be like, "oh, i popped my head in to say hello." just a year after riding high with the award, post office auditors got in touch. money was missing from the accounts. as far as i was concerned, everything was absolutely fine. and then, the next day, my mum's being treated like a criminal. there was an internal investigation and a formal hearing, and when it was over, katie says her mum was given two choices. "admit you're guilty... "..and you have to pay back all the money "that we've said you've stolen, "but you can go home to your children, or... "..you maintain your innocence, "but we have enough to prosecute you." she accepted the guilty... she said that she was guilty.

from the age of 13, my childhood was...gone. it was... ..nonexistent. there are huge periods in my childhood that i don't look back on fondly. i would say that what the post office did ruined the rest of my childhood. it was hard enough having people look into every aspect of their lives, but worse was to follow. towards the end of the investigation, she noticed a lump had appeared in her armpit and had gone to the doctor to have it checked, as you would, and they had concluded that she had lymphoma.

and she was trying to battle that at the same time as battling to prove her innocence with the post office. and, you know, you're sat on the sofa, trying to recover from having surgery and you've got strangers walking in your house who look at you like you've done wrong. thinking about... ..what mum was going through at that point, i can't even begin to comprehend the sheer magnitude of it in her mind, having to hold... ..hold it together for the sake of the rest of the family. she waited until we'd come home from school... ..so that we could see her one last time, and we all gathered round her bed. she couldn't do both — fight cancer and fight the post office. she tried. she really tried, but she...

she couldn't do both. i think people forget that there is a knock—on effect to the children. kids have watched families become bankrupt. to have their parents ostracised because people believe that they are guilty. i think it's important that the children are recognised, um... ..and something happens for them.

there are a good number of those children that - are deeply affected now - in adulthood from what's gone on in their formative years. as it stands, there's no - mechanism for compensation for children at the minute. what there is is a huge - groundswell of support to see how that can be brought about. what i've noticed on this journey, meeting all these people, is there's a common thread, and that is that it didn't just affect the people that were accused. you can see it still weighs on them. you can still feel it.

and it's unbelievable how...you know, that they're still struggling through life because of what the post office did to them. we're heading to south pelaw in county durham and to the street stephanie hasn't been back to in 16 years. it's clear stephanie is anxious, but she wants to take the plunge. i could see when we were driving up here that, as we were pulling in, your hands were like white knuckles on the door. i know! why was that? i don't know! do you think that's an anxiety? mm—hm. do you think that's...? uh-huh. it's like a trauma that's still inside you. mm—hm. so, if you walked up there past your house now, how would that make you feel? you couldn't do it? mm—mm. really?

wow. and i loved it... as we were talking, stephanie was spotted, and it turned out to be the step forward she never dreamed she'd find. hello. are you local? yes. hi. do you know this lady? vaguely. really? nice to see you. thank you. come on. 0h... come on. she sniffs thank you. thank you. you're welcome back round here any time. you really are. and it's been awful what you've gone through. we've watched it avidly on the... ..during the show and the news every night. it'sjust been terrible what you've all had to go through. thank you so much. you can come to my house any time. stephanie sniffles thank you so much.

she feels like people still don't believe that she's innocent, even though she's been proven innocent. no. stephanie 5035 thank you so much. _ thank you. you honestly don't know what that means. honestly. you're 0k. and you'll get through it. there's lots of people behind you. all the country's behind you. thank you. and so don't ever think that they're not. oh, bless her. wow. it's made me day, that. that's made your day? see? well done. well done, you. with the compensation bill expected to exceed £1 billion, hundreds of convictions quashed, and the public inquiry not due to finish until next year, this story won't be disappearing any time soon. meanwhile, many of those affected will continue making small steps to move forward and heal the past.

hello, there. thursday was another day of heat and humidity, particularly across central and southern wales, where we saw temperatures widely into the high—205. but temperatures did peak in wisley, surrey, and bournemouth, at 30 celsius once again. it did, however, come at a price, this heat and humidity, because, through the afternoon, we saw a cluster of sharp, thundery downpours moving their way eastwards. now, they started off across south wales, and then steadily pushed their way east.

there were quite slow—moving, because the winds pretty light, and they brought a lot of heavy rain in a short space of time. those sharp, thundery downpours still continuing to drift their way eastwards during the early hours of friday, but they will clear away. clearer skies behind — sign of a change to come on friday, with more cloud and rain gathering in the far north west. but friday will start off on a warm, sultry note in the south east — 17 celsius to greet us first thing in the morning — and still the risk of a few sharp showers easing away from east anglia. but the real change will come with this area of low pressure, up into the north west — it will gradually introduce stronger winds, more cloud, and eventually some rain. so, we start off with a few scattered showers across east anglia, slowly brightening up and warming up once again — another warm, humid day here. but heavier rain developing into northern ireland, north—west scotland, as the afternoon progresses. it may well stay relatively dry across eastern parts of scotland. temperatures in scotland and northern ireland, 16 to 21 celsius, but a warm, sultry afternoon across eastern england, with highs of 27 celsius. somewhat fresher conditions

will arrive as we move into the weekend, because as this front — a cold front — sinks south and east, it will introduce slightly less humid air. but there is still a risk of a cloudy start across parts of england and wales, and a line of sharp, thundery downpours moving their way south and east. behind it, brighter conditions, a few scattered showers into the north west, and saturday, not quite as warm right across the country, ranging from 15 to 2a celsius, and that trend is going to continue into the week ahead. temperatures, perhaps, back to where they should be for this time of year. there will be more in the way of rain around, but all in all, for some, still some good, dry, usable weather. take care.

live from washington, this is bbc news. three americans are on their way home, after the largest prisoner swap between the west and russia since the cold war, including the journalist evan gershkovich. new reports are emerging about the assassination of hamas's political leader, ismail haniyeh. and here in the us democratic delegates begin voting for the party's presidential nominee, which is set to be kamala harris. hello. i'm rajini vaidyanathan. welcome to this hour. we begin with the breakthrough in diplomatic negotiations which saw the largest prisoner swap between russia, the us and other western nations since the cold war. three us citizens who are among those released are making

their way home to the us,