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It took a television drama to bring about justice for thousands of people in Britain caught up in what the prime minister called one of the country’s biggest miscarriages of justice.
Barely a week after ITV started airing “Mr Bates vs the Post Office” in January, Rishi Sunak told the House of Commons that the government was introducing legislation to quash the convictions of more than 700 subpostmasters. They run small post offices, often in little communities where everyone knows each other.
Now the drama is being broadcast by PBS, with the first episode airing on Sunday.
The scandal dates back more than a quarter of a century, when the Post Office brought in a computer system at huge expense to modernize its operations. That system, supplied by Japan’s Fujitsu, appeared to show that many subpostmasters were stealing money – but they were not. It was the Horizon system that was faulty.
Many were jailed, or were left bankrupt by repaying debts they never incurred or having their businesses taken away from them. Seema Misra, convicted of stealing £74,000 (about $95,000) and sentenced to 15 months for theft and false accounting, said she would have killed herself had she not been pregnant with her second child at the time.
Peter Huxham died by suicide in July 2020 after being jailed for eight months over a £16,000 shortfall and the failure of his marriage.
Martin Griffiths, 59, jumped in front of a bus in 2013 after being falsely accused of theft at his post office branch in Ellesmere Port, near Liverpool.
Others had marriages destroyed, were ostracized by their communities and ruined financially. Julian Wilson, for one, died before being able to clear his name. Each case is shocking in its own way.
Journalists have been covering the problems with Horizon for at least 15 years ago. Outlets including Computer Weekly, Private Eye and public broadcaster the BBC covered the story extensively – but it wasn’t until the four-part drama starring Toby Jones (who’s appeared in “Harry Potter” and “Hunger Games” films) that millions of people became aware of the injustice, not to mention the untold pain and suffering inflicted on the subpostmasters and their families.
The program focused on Alan Bates, who along with his partner invested in a post office store in Wales in 1998. A number of financial discrepancies were identified by the computer system, and when he refused to repay one sum, the Post Office terminated his contract, wiping out their £60,000 investment and destroying their livelihood. For more than two decades Bates has campaigned for justice for hundreds of people like him. He wasn’t prosecuted, but many others were.
A letter to The Guardian newspaper from John Beer of Farnham, Surrey sums up the reaction of many people: “With increasing incredulity and rage, I viewed as it revealed what lengths some senior executives and boards will go to protect their companies even when they know the lives of so many good and honest people are being ruined or terminated.”
The public anger galvanized ministers into taking incredibly swift action by drafting a new law to clear the names of all those convicted — although cynics argue that a looming general election later this year also helped to focus minds. The blanket acquittal appears to be the first time that parliament has been asked to overturn the verdict of courts of law, The Guardian reported.
While some convictions had already been overturned, most had not, and a government inquiry into the scandal is still taking evidence and won’t report until next year.
A huge number of questions remain unanswered. Why did the Post Office — which has been owned by the government since 2012 – continue to prosecute people when there were doubts about the software? And why did the government keep awarding contracts worth almost £5 billion ($6.4 billion) to Fujitsu even after the Court of Appeal ruled in December 2019 that its software was at fault?
Then there’s the issue of whether taxpayers should be expected to foot the compensation bill of £600,000 ($763,000) for each wrongful conviction. That sounds like a lot of money, but campaigners say it only covers loss of earnings rather than include damages for many.
A government minister, Kevin Hollinrake, said Fujitsu would have to cover some of the bill if it was found “culpable” by the public inquiry. Fujitsu apologized for the postmasters’ “suffering,” but didn’t comment further “out of respect for the inquiry process,” the Financial Times reported.
The conduct of Post Office managers is also under renewed scrutiny. BBC News reported on Friday that the company lied and made threats before it broadcast an interview in 2015 with a whistleblower who revealed that figures on the Horizon system could be changed without users’ knowledge.
Gwyneth Hughes, who wrote the drama, said in a press release that despite their pain and suffering, the victims of the Post Office scandal “manage to be funny and warm and welcoming even after 25 years of their ordeal. These were ordinary British people, living ordinary British lives, until suddenly they weren’t,” she said.
“Suddenly they were dubbed thieves and villains, trapped in a nightmare of false accusation and public humiliation. Innocent people, pillars of their communities, and the worst of it is that each of them was told they were the only one having problems with the Horizon computer system.”
After more than a million people signed a petition calling on Paula Vennells, the former CEO of the Post Office, to be stripped of a public honor called a CBE given to her in 2019 for services to the organization, and to charity. This week the former Anglican priest decided to voluntarily return the honor and said in a statement she was “truly sorry for the devastation caused to the sub-postmasters and their families.”
Alan Bates had refused a similar honor while Vennells still held hers, but that could soon change. Sunak’s spokesman said it was “hard to think of someone more deserving than him” and he could be in line for a knighthood — Britain’s highest honor.
The death of network TV has been forecast many times, but it’s not quite dead yet. That may be only because advertisers still find it the best way to reach mass audiences.
Nevertheless, it’s highly likely that if a streaming platform or even a pay-TV channel had shown the drama, it wouldn’t have had anything like the same impact — if only because far fewer people would’ve seen it. The program and an accompanying documentary have been seen by almost 15 million people, according to ITV.
James Strong, the director, told BBC News: “It’s astonishing — we thought we’d hopefully raise awareness and get the story of the victims to a wider audience, but no one ever thought we’d get this sort of reaction and response … it’s mind-blowing.”
Polly Hill, ITV’s head of drama, said: “We commissioned this drama because it was a story that demanded to be told. Like everyone watching the show, I couldn’t believe what had happened. We all just wanted the drama to help get that story heard by as many people as we could. ITV is proud to have told this story and to support the subpostmasters.”
“Mr Bates vs the Post Office” is being broadcast on PBS weekly from Sunday April 7. Episodes will be available to stream for 14 days and can also be streamed on the PBS App, PBS Passport, and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel.
