A Government minister has told sub-postmasters whose lives were wrecked by the Horizon scandal that those responsible should be jailed. Kevin Hollinrake heard heartbreaking stories from Post Office IT victims, including a woman who was jailed while pregnant. The Post Office minister joined dozens of sub-postmasters in the village where Alan Bates mounted his fight for justice 15 years ago. Post Office Minister Mr Hollinrake told them he believes those responsible should be imprisoned once the Inquiry is open. He was met with applause as he said: "People should be prosecuted. That's my view. And I think you and other people I've spoken to certainly feel that people within the Post Office and possibly further afield should go to jail." He told the
BBC Breakfast special broadcast: "I have no reservation in saying that people should go to jail." He described the victims' ordeals as "inexcusable". Former sub-postmaster Seema Misra was pregnant when she was sentenced on her son's 10th birthday Seema Misra, who sentenced to
prison while pregnant on her son's 10th birthday. She recounted: "I saw him in the morning, I said 'I'll be back home'. I don't think we all thought 'why would somebody send me to prison for a crime I never committed? I said I'll be back I'll be coming back home, I'm going to put your favorite curry on because he was 10th birthday on that particular day." Jess Kaur, who suffered a breakdown and had to be sectioned before charges against her were dropped in 2011, said: "We have a
WhatsApp group and it's called winners. And it's called winners for a reason because we're all going to be winners one day." She said while she was in hospital the Post Office sent its own doctors to assess whether she was telling the truth. Jess Kaur was sectioned after having a breakdown following her ordeal ( Image: BBC) Sharon, from Sunderland, said her home was searched by investigators, and even members of her family thought she was guilty. She told the BBC : "When the money started disappearing from the Post Office, I just couldn't figure it out. I didn't even consider that it was the computers. I thought it was me all the time." She said: "They broke us." Sharon said the impact of the ordeal almost led her to "do something stupid", and revealed her mum passed away before she learned she wouldn't be prosecuted. Mark Kelly, from Swansea, said: "I started hearing about all the problems the other postmasters are having like people committing suicide to people going to prison and things like that. I started to feel quite guilty from it all I felt like I could have done something. So I became myself depressed and isolated." The sub-postmasters gathered in Fenny Compton, Warwickshire, where campaigner Alan Bates launched his campaign for justice 15 years ago. Mr Bates is set to address the Post Office Inquiry, which is examining the Horizon IT scandal, on Tuesday. More than 700 postmasters had their lives ruined after the faulty Horizon system made it look like money was missing from their branches. The Government is under mounting pressure to finally put this right, with public anger rising after ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office aired in January. Gwyneth Hughes, who wrote the ITV drama, said she was delighted her work has made a difference. She said: "The law was difficult to get a grip of anyone who I interviewed during the course of my research will tell you that I kept asking the same questions because I couldn't understand it. "I couldn't understand what was going on. So I'm not surprised that it took a drama to get it into the public consciousness way it did. But I am surprised at how how enormously the
British public took it on and the nerve that we struck with that TV drama, it's been an extraordinary experience." Join our Mirror Politics WhatsApp community for all the latest from Westminster