FUNERAL EVE INTERVIEW Louise Dar was 7 months pregnant when she faced the auditors. The day before her mother's funeral, Louise Dar was questioned. Post Office called it a formal interview, which is a lovely name for asking a grieving woman where the money went. I read Louise Dar's sworn statement to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry @PostOffInquiry. She took over the village post counter in Lenzie, near Glasgow, in November 2014. She is a mum of 3 and a former IT analyst, and before opening she asked for training on what to do when the books do not balance. She says she was fobbed off, and that a trainer told her cost cutbacks had shrunk the course from 5 days to 3. On day one, she says, auditor Margaret Guthrie suggested she had taken the £977, even though they had been together all day. Louise Dar says Margaret Guthrie had entered the stamps wrongly herself and could not find her own mistake. Her advice for future trouble was to get on with it and ring the helpline. Reassuring stuff from the person sent to check everyone else's sums. Then the audits came. In July 2015 about £10,500 was found missing and her branch shut for 6 weeks. She repaid £877 a month for 18 months. Two more audits found about £2,500 in 2016 and £6,900 in 2017. She says losses kept appearing while she was locked out of the system .... She says she paid or had deducted over £44,000. Her mother-in-law sold jewellery to help. She says her contracts manager Brian Trotter asked her several times to admit falsifying the books. Persistence like that deserves a bonus.. Her mother died suddenly in March 2017. She says Post Office summoned her to a formal interview the day before the funeral and accused her of stealing. Thoughtful scheduling, really. Her appointment ended on 27 March 2017 and she was never charged. Her mother never saw her proved right. Post Office tells it differently. It says her appointment ended for repeated failures to account for cash and stock, and for being unable to explain or repay the last shortfall. It says its investigation found falsified entries under her assistant's login and that she later accepted she was responsible for an unexplained currency gap. Its barrister put it to her in the High Court that the losses came from her or her staff's dishonesty or errors. She denied it and said the helpline once told her to change stock figures. Its barrister said that did not happen. She said it categorically did. She was one of 6 lead claimants for 555 postmasters in the High Court case against Post Office, which left her outside the Historic Shortfall Scheme. She told the Inquiry on 11 May 2022 that her payments hardly touched her debts. In January 2024 she asked Police Scotland @PoliceScotland to investigate. It said it was not investigating at that time. The government owns Post Office and the Department for Business and Trade runs the compensation, so the owner is also the claims desk. Very handy. Louise Dar asked for troubleshooting training. @PostOffice gave her the trouble.