A former Ottery sub-postmaster who was accused of stealing £17,000 from the branch has been posthumously cleared of any wrongdoing.

Russell Ward-Best was among the hundreds of victims of the Horizon Post Office scandal in which faulty accounting software made it appear that money was missing from their branches.

He was never prosecuted, but was provisionally suspended by the Post Office, and then resigned from his job.

As a result of the Post Office chasing the ‘missing’ funds, and the loss of income from employment, Mr Ward-Best was eventually declared bankrupt.

He protested his innocence until his death in 2016, and the Post Office has now formally recognised that he did nothing wrong. Its Historical Shortfall compensation scheme has paid off all his debts to the bankruptcy trustees, along with the interest accrued over more than 20 years, and the bankruptcy will be removed from his records.

Mr Ward-Best was Ottery’s sub-postmaster from December 1993 until he stepped down in November 2001. The Horizon system was introduced at the post office in September 2000, and he soon began to notice discrepancies in the financial records. In the summer of 2001 he reported his concerns to Consignia, as the post office was known at the time.

An audit was carried out in early November and, after the apparent loss of £17,000 was found, he resigned from the job.

At the time he gave an interview to the Herald saying he knew he had done nothing wrong and had nothing to be ashamed of. He said he was responsible for the branch's money because he was in charge, but he had not stolen it or made mistakes serious enough to lose that amount of cash.

However, his marriage broke up and he descended into debt and depression.

The Horizon scandal finally came to light 20 years later, after more than 700 branch managers had been given criminal convictions, and some sent to prison.

In 2019 a group of postmasters took legal action against the Post Office in the High Court and won a settlement worth £43 million plus legal costs. In February 2022 a public inquiry was held into the wrongful convictions.

Mr Ward-Best’s family applied for compensation under the Post Office’s Historical Shortfall Scheme in June 2020, and – after a long delay – received confirmation that Ottery Post Office had been affected by the faults with Horizon software while he had been in charge. His name has now been cleared and an application made for the bankruptcy to be removed from his records.