Shropshire Post office computers hit by glitch

Post offices across the county, including ones in Shrewsbury, Market Drayton, Ruyton XI Towns and Hinstock, were hit by a computer glitch which left customers unable to pay bills, post packages or collect benefits.

The Horizon computer system, which is used to log all post office transactions, was out of action for about an hour-and-a-half on Monday morning.

The Post Office apologised on its Twitter and Facebook accounts for the inconvenience caused, saying the issue had now been resolved.

Joanne Thompson, sub-postmistress at Ruyton XI Towns post office, said her computer was down from 9am onwards. "I think it was down for about an hour and a half, and when it came back on it was very slow," she said.

At Hinstock Post Office, Delyth Cobham also said there had been a problem at about the same time.

Caroline Jones, who runs Abbey Foregate Post Office in Shrewsbury, said she was unable to carry out any financial transactions.

"Monday is always a busy time, but there is nothing you can do," she said. "We had to tell the customers to come back later when it was running again."

A Post Office spokesman said: "We are sorry for any inconvenience or delay caused to customers this morning when our branches experienced problems processing customer transactions. Our priority was to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. To do this there was a very short period when all branches were affected. We are continuing to monitor services to ensure it is business as usual in our branches."

The Horizon system has been the centre of controversy since it was claimed that dozens of sub-postmasters had been wrongly jailed as a result of financial discrepancies caused by glitches. Former Shrewsbury sub-postmistress Rubbina Shaheen is fighting to clear her name after being sentenced to 12 months in jail over a £43,000 shortfall which she says was caused by problems with the system.