Betty Brown, the 92-year-old, is the oldest surviving victim of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, and has been appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to justice after campaigning against wrongful prosecutions. Brown ran the Annfield Plain Post Office in County Durham with her late husband Oswall from 1985, but they were forced out in 2003 after spending more than £50,000 of their savings to cover non-existent shortfalls.

Brown recently received her long-awaited settlement from one of the government's compensation schemes. She told BBC Breakfast that she accepted the recognition in the New Year Honours list on behalf of all the victims of the scandal. "Every one of them should have an OBE," she said.

The Post Office Horizon IT scandal involved the faulty Horizon accounting software, which led to the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters and mistresses for theft, fraud, and false accounting. These individuals were held responsible for financial discrepancies that were actually caused by errors in the Horizon system, developed by Fujitsu. Many were financially ruined, and some were imprisoned. The scandal has been described as one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in British history.

The Horizon system was introduced in 1999, and problems began to emerge shortly thereafter. Sub-postmasters reported unexplained discrepancies in their accounts, which the Post Office insisted were due to their own errors. The Post Office pursued criminal charges against many of these individuals, leading to convictions and severe financial penalties.

The fight for justice has been long and arduous, with many victims spending years trying to clear their names. The government has established several compensation schemes to provide redress to those who were wrongly convicted or suffered financial losses. A public inquiry is ongoing to examine the full extent of the scandal and to determine who was responsible.