A victim of the Post Office Horizon scandal who died before receiving final compensation or witnessing the current public outcry took a fatal fall after being diagnosed with a brain tumour, her inquest has heard.
Lynette Hutchings, 67, a former post office operator who was wrongfully convicted of false accounting in 2012, fell at her home in Hampshire and died in hospital in February last year, the inquest was told.
Hutchings was one of 39 post office operators whose convictions were quashed by the court of appeal in 2021 because of flaws in the Horizon IT system.
Speaking about his late wife at the inquest, Stephen Hutchings said gardening was her “real love” in her later years. “She was a caring person who thought of others before herself,” he said. “We met in college and I miss her often.”
He told the inquest he would not go into the “whole history” of the Horizon scandal but they had endured problems that left them “out of pocket” and were unable to go back to their previous profession of teaching.
The coroner Jason Pegg, sitting in Portsmouth, gave a conclusion of accidental death after finding that Hutchings would not have died had she not fallen and hit her head in December 2022. He said she had been diagnosed with a brain tumour that “clearly affected” her balance, breathing and swallowing.
Hutchings, who after her conviction was sentenced to a 12-month community order with 120 hours of unpaid work, which included litter picking, was a core participant in the ongoing inquiry into the scandal.
She told the inquiry: “I felt humiliated and unable to speak about the situation. Throughout the criminal investigation, I started suffering with depressive episodes. I met my husband after college and we had no major issues in our relationship. However, following the conviction I could not speak to him about what had happened. I sank into myself and hid away from everyone. At one point I was in a such a dark place I even had thoughts about taking my own life.”
She continued: “I am no longer in good health. I was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2014. After extensive surgery, at least 50% of my brain tumour remains and cannot be operated on without incurring a fatal outcome. I have ongoing problems which are getting worse.”
In March last year the inquiry’s chair, Sir Wyn Williams, extended his condolences to Hutchings’ family and established with her legal team that she had not been fully compensated.
