When subpostmaster Alan Bates was accused of theft by his employers, he refused to back down.
In 1998, he took over ownership of the local Post Office in Craig-y-Don, north Wales, but two years later the business started struggling.
At least that is what Alan was told.
His experience, which turned out to be part of one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in UK history, is the centre of the new four-part ITV drama series Mr Bates vs The Post Office, starring Toby Jones as Bates alongside Will Mellor, Katherine Kelly and Julie Hesmondhalgh.
Soon after Alan started working for the company, the Post Office rolled out the Horizon computer system, supplied by Fujitsu, and suddenly unexplained losses started appearing in his accounts.
Although his contract said he was responsible for having to pay the money, Alan refused and demanded the computer evidence to prove the cause of the losses.
In 2003 his contract was terminated.
Determined to prove he wasn’t at fault, over the following years he started tracking down other subpostmasters and subpostmistresses and despite each being told that they were the only ones experiencing these problems with Horizon, they were far from it.
Thousands were being affected by the faulty system.
As others faced the same horrors as Alan, the Post Office spent nearly 20 years taking 700 employees to court for theft, false accounting and fraud.
Some went to prison following convictions, many others were financially ruined and more than 60 died without seeing justice or compensation.
At least four took their own lives.
Set to air after the final episode of the drama series is the documentary, Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The Real Story, which pieces together the impact of these appalling events, with those affected speaking about what they experienced.
In it, Alan explains how he was ‘never accepting of the figure Horizon had thrown up each week’.
‘I wasn’t prepared to do that. They then said I had to do it or else, but I refused until I had access to the system and eventually, they terminated my contract without giving me any reason and that was it,’ he said.
He added: ‘They walked off with my life savings and decided to give my post office to someone else.’
Many others faced financial ruin too, with Jo Hamilton from South Warnborough being charged with theft.
While she ended up accepting a plea deal and pleaded guilty to false accounting, convinced she had been accidentally doing something wrong, she was then made liable for repaying £36,000.
Jo, along with the help of her supportive community, helped pay it off, however, she has now accepted she won’t be able to retire for years to come and is working as a cleaner to make ends meet.
After Alan and his partner, Suzanne Sercombe lost £65,000 in the process of giving up their business, they became determined to seek justice.
It was in 2009 that the first meeting of thirty postmasters took place in Fenny Compton, Warwickshire where they shared their stories.
Eventually, Alan and five others from the JFSA (Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance) took the Post Office to court on behalf of 555 claimants.
A decade after that original meeting, it was ruled the missing money was the fault of computer errors and the Post Office was ordered to pay £58million in compensation for the false prosecutions.
Judge Fraser described the Post Office denials about Horizon issues as ‘institutional obstinacy’.
But after their legal costs were paid, the group were left with only £12million, which totalled to around £20,000 each, far less than some had lost.
By 2020, the government had initiated an independent inquiry, which was then converted to a public one the following year, looking into whether the Post Office and software supplier Fujitsu knew about the faults in the IT system.
It was intended to be completed a few months ago but is still ongoing.
In the documentary, Alan makes it clear he’s not ready to stop and will continue to offer a voice to the people impacted by the scandal until they receive their full compensation.
This year he also turned down an OBE, citing the fact he didn’t want to accept the honour whilst former Post Office boss Paula Vennells still had her CBE, which she was awarded in 2019.
‘The people who should be held to account are the people who have had a very cooshtie lifestyle on vast quantities of money whilst they’ve made hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals suffer whilst knowing the real truth of what’s been going on and denying it,’ Alan says.
‘Those are the people who should be held responsible.’
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Mr Bates vs the Post Office is airing across four nights from January 1 at 9pm on ITV1. Also airing on January 4 is Mr Bates vs the Post Office: The Real Story at 10.45pmon ITV1.
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