Royal | News - Prince Ricardo De La Cerda
It seems like the whole nation is talking about the Post Office scandal which has been called one of the UK’s greatest miscarriages of justice.
An ITV drama catapulted the terrible details of the case back into the public’s consciousness at large.
But one royal and her family have remained steadfastly loyal to one of the victims of the outrageous case that saw hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and post mistresses prosecuted for theft – with many losing their jobs, being sent to prison and even taking their own life.
Hasmukh Shingadia, 63, said that Princess Kate’s Middleton family “supported me a lot” when he was accused of stealing £16,000 from the Post Office.
From 1998 Hasmukh ran the Post Office and Spar in Upper Bucklebury, Berkshire, where Princess Kate grew up with her family.
Hasmukh was given a suspended jail term after his Horizon computer system showed £16,000 of discrepancies in 2011, reports GB News.
However he got a suspended sentence for false accounting overturned – and says that during his 10-year battle for justice the Middletons always supported him.
The grandfather said: “They continued to come into my shop and spend money here. Even after Kate got engaged she’d still pop in. Not everybody did that and some locals shunned me.”
Princess Kate and her sister Pippa used to buy Haribos and Doritos from the Spar.
Prince William would also buy ice cream and a newspaper from the shop while he was visiting Kate.
The conviction was quashed in 2021 and when it was overturned, the Middletons attended a celebratory tea party at the village’s Bucklebury memorial hall.
Hasmukh, who no longer has a Post Office, and his wife Chandrika, 55, were invited to Kate and Prince William’s royal wedding in 2011, just prior to the conviction.
He said: “He (Michael Middleton, Kate’s father) was overjoyed and said, ‘Well done’.
“I know I couldn’t ask them for help directly because of the position they were in. But I am really grateful to the wider family for standing by me. They are really good people.”
Hasmukh is now demanding that every conviction is overturned as over 700 sub postmasters have been wrongfully accused of stealing from the Post Office after the Horizon scandal.