A former Dundee sub-postmaster may be forced back to court to try to recover £16,500 stolen by a trusted employee.
Rashid Hussein was speaking after his manager Grant Keay was sentenced to 10 months in prison for embezzling the money from the Whitfield Post Office.
The jail term and not a compensation order was imposed at the sheriff court, leaving Mr Hussein angry and frustrated.
As sub-postmaster, the 61-year-old businessman was initially suspended and then found personally liable for the stolen money, which he had to repay from his own savings to keep the business.
The theft was a factor which has since seen him give up the shop and he remains heavily out of pocket.
“My solicitor sent a letter on my behalf asking the court to make a compensation order against Keay but this wasn’t granted, and this has made me angry,” he said.
“Grant Keay seemed a genuine person and a good employee. It was impossible for me to spot what he was up to and it took the Post Office long enough to figure out what he was doing.
“Under the terms of my contract I was liable. I was suspended after the Post Office’s auditors arrived and I had to pay the money from my own savings.
“The court didn’t order Keay to compensate me for the money he stole, which I’m not happy about.
“I’m going to speak to my solicitor to see if I can do anything in the civil court to get my money back.”
Keay, 42, admitted the fraud which he carried out over two years to January 2011 at the post office in Whitfield Drive.
His elaborate scam involved making 78 loan transactions mostly under his own name to steal £16,573.82.
Mr Hussein continued: “One day the Post Office’s auditors arrived without warning to say they were carrying out an urgent investigation. I could do nothing but step aside and let them get on with it.
“Then they found this discrepancy and I was suspended as I was the sub-postmaster. I had to repay the money that had been lost before I could get back to the shop.
“All the transactions are automated and there was no paperwork or details for me to check.
“Keay was trusted to do his job properly, but he fooled me and he fooled the Post Office for a long time before they figured out what was really happening.”
Mr Hussein continued to run the post office for a year before applying for the compensation scheme for sub-postmasters who want to leave the business.
“With things like pensions and benefits being paid directly to people without them having to visit post offices, it became much more difficult to make a living,” he said.
“The compensation scheme allowed me to get out, but what Keay did really sickened me. It was the last straw.”