Calverley: Yorkshire village to be left without a post office as family targeted in Horizon scandal confirm they are selling the shop

They had numerous issues with the defective Horizon software featured in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office – which was responsible for numerous subpostmasters being convicted of fraud and theft – and ended up taking out loans, remortgaging their property and borrowing money from relatives to make up supposed ‘shortfalls’ that their contract required them to pay back.

After 18 years, the couple, who have three children, have told Calverley residents that they will be leaving the business in March and that the premises will continue to trade as a general store under new owners – but will not remain as a Post Office branch.

In a post on a local Facebook group, the Hussains wrote: “We took over as a family in May 2006. Our youngest child, Suleyman, was literally four weeks old when we started the business. The whole process was an enormous undertaking and it took almost 18 months for Waheeda to be approved as a subpostmaster (ironically, given what we had to put up with subsequently) which was an inordinately long period of time with finance having to be rearranged etc.

"We extended our shop/Post Office in 2010 and adopted a long hours business model with both the shop and the Post Office. Waheeda could not have done this without our esteemed local beekeeper, Peter James Hoskins, who supported us in this part of our journey. Sadly, neither Royal Mail nor the Post Office supported us - they could have adopted different pick-up times for the post etc, but they would not do this.

"We are incredibly thankful to all our local customers who have supported us through thick and thin. There are significant numbers of you who have supported us through our side ventures like the Friday curry nights, the pop-up French bakery, and our ftreet Food Fridays. Most of you will be aware that these were necessary for us to simply survive as a business and to remain afloat. We have been blessed with the custom of lots of local businesses but particularly Zenith. Zenith moved to Kirkstall Forge a few years later, but were originally based in the mills in Calverley. Zenith are one of the leading car leasing companies in the UK and we completed a considerable number of road taxes for them over the years. In fact, without their business over the years we would not have survived.

"To all those regular purchasers of newspapers who know of our battles with Menzies, our wholesaler, thank you for your support. In particular, people like David Alred who wrote to the CEO of Menzies. To all of you who came in on a regular basis we as a family thank you very much for your support.

"Coming back to the impact of the Horizon on Waheeda and all of us as a family. All the time - from when we opened (to several years after) we kept getting a series of shortfalls/corrections on balancing day which was a Wednesday evening. The Post Office contract was such that we had to pay back any shortfalls. Quite often Waheeda would spend several hours on the balancing of the books, repeatedly doing them over and over again, Unfortunately the result was the same ad-infinitum. She dreaded every Wednesday although she hid this from our customers and family. This felt like a version of the ‘mafia’ coming to collect a weekly/fortnightly/ monthly contribution. These shortfalls were often in the hundreds of pounds and occasionally more than that. Waheeda felt that she had little choice but to balance the books.

"We as a family sold all our valuables, borrowed money from relatives, took out loans and remortgaged etc just to pay off these mysterious shortfalls - all this time was an extremely dark and anxious period for all of us but particularly for Waheeda. In fact, if it was not for my dear departed father-in-law things may have been vastly different. Our very own local legend, Peter James Hoskins was also a huge help. The main reason we just put the cash in to make up the shortfalls was the fear of not only losing the business but the family home etc.

"Just as a side note we are part of the GLO and the original 555 claimants as per Alan Bates and the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance. We hope that justice is served to all of those that have been affected by the scandal.

"Anyway, to cut a very long story short we are selling the business and unless the Post Office can find a local establishment that can take over the sub-post office, it will close by the middle of March. We are sorry to have announce this. There will be a general store replacing the post office. However, I will leave it to the new owners to announce what they are going to do etc.

"For the time being we will remain in the village. The nearest post offices will be in Woodhall, Idle and Farsley. Good tidings to all customers and friends from the Hussains – Waheeda, Asaf, Saeed, Kaiss and Suleyman.”