Mr Bates vs. The Post Office

For anyone who doesn't know the story of the Horizon Post Office Scandal, it's hard to sum up in a few line sound bites. Essentially at the turn of the year 2000 the entire Post Office Network in the UK became computerised. The new computer system, Horizon, was outsourced and designed by Fujitsu. It was already late, had gone over budget and was full of bugs, but was launched anyway. Soon thereafter Postmasters all over the country began experiencing shortfalls on their accounts, shortfalls which due to their draconian contract they were legally liable for. The Post Office had an entire investigation and legal department responsible for prosecuting postmasters, which it did with great vigour, while exercising no investigation whatsoever to the Post Masters claims - that Horizon was at fault. This party line continued for near on 20 years, while Postmasters all over the country were having their lives systematically destroyed by the very brand they had been working for. Many lost most or all of their savings, relationships suffered, and some committed suicide.

The main protagonist here is Alan Bates (Toby Jones) a former Subpostmaster who begins to rally other victims to his cause, and ultimately takes the Post Office on in the High Court. The span of the story here covers a period of well over twenty years and it does well to juggle multiple narratives and storylines, as well as give a greater insight into some of those who were responsible (at least two of whom, portrayed in this drama, should be facing prison sentences) fort this utter travesty - The meat of the screen time goes to Bates, Jo Hamilton (an excellent performance from Monica Dolan) and Lee Castleton (a nice out of type casting of Will Mellor in the role) - Postmasters all at the sharp end of this tale. A couple of composite characters make up some of the other Postmasters and other characters in the story including Bob Rutherford (Ian Hart) are composites, his character being based on the Second Sight duo of Ian Henderson & Ron Warmington. Hart nails them both superbly wioth his role. Other notable performances are the likes of Lia Williams and Katherine Kelly, playing Paula Vennells and Angela van den Bogerd, two women who were out of their depth in their own Post Office Senior Management roles, let alone in exploring the Horizon issue at hand. And whose lying apathy is brilliantly captured by both actors. Shaun Dooley, an actor I always have a lot of time for is great as Michael Riffikin, the man who saw first hand accounts being altered by employees at Fujitsu remotely. Amit Shah & Alex Jennings both give solid turns in their respective roles.

When I first saw the trailer for this series, I was initially worried that such a crucial story of our time had been reduced to a Ms Marble like Sunday easy going drama affair. Fortunately, despite the God awful song on the closing credits of every episode, this drama scores more than it misses and doesn't shy away from several of the darker aspects of the story.

For the most part this is a show which does a superb job of juggling an incredibly complex topic, and is anchored by solid and well researched performances. Some of the dialogue is very expositional at times, (especially in episode 1) but there is a lot to pack into the four hour running time. In what really should have been a six parter for a story of this type and scale, inevitably some things, events and people were not included. It did feel a little criminal not to at least mention the investigation work done by Panorama, (a major turning point in the story) or have the name of investigating Journalist Nick Wallace mentioned by someone, somewhere in the show. (his name is in the credits to be fair) These were key turning points in the fight for justice and warrant inclusion and I am sure we could have had a few less shots of the impressive Welsh Countryside and a bit more meat elsewhere.. But this is essentially the Postmasters story, and while it would have been interesting to see more scenes on who, what, where and when took key decisions at both the Post Office and Fujitsu, this drama should go a long way to waking up the general public on this crucial issue of public interest, who have been largely ignorant of it for so long.

It's vital viewing and essential part of the quest for justice in what has become the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history. I remind you, like the show does itself, the fight continues for many, and its not over yet.

Highly recommended.

I'm glad that this horrendous story is finally getting the headline and prime time news that it deserves.

Paula Vennells and the Post office are an absolute disgrace. Knowingly sending almost 300 people to gaol for a crime that you know 100% they did not commit but was 100% fraud comitting by the Post office, under Paula's instruction, well there just aren't words to describe how evil Paula is.

This show is a fantastic portray of the corruption of the post office and how they not only cheated their loyal postmasters out of their live savings but also how they tried to cover it all up.

Hopefully not that this show has been aired the Post office will be held accountable and Paula will be stripped of her honours and gaoled.

Best ITV show of 2024.

This was riveting and we binge watched the 4 episodes and then the seperate Mr Bates the true story . The latter shows how accurately was the depiction of a true (and ongoing) story.

Really well made and acted

A shocking example of how corporate management will protect their brand image. That they can do no wrong and therefore cannot admit any mistakes or errors.

No matter who has to suffer as a consequence.

And when an organisation like the post office has the power to investigate itself and is virtually a law unto itself how the senior executives abuse that power.

The lengths the post office executive would go to try to cover up software mistakes was shocking.

Even more shocking was there has been no. Prosecutions of the post office management nor Fujitsu, (The post office CEO Paula Vennells was even awarded a CBE in 2020 )

You really feel the injustice to hundreds of sub-post masters who were persecuted, prosecuted and sacked. Which went on for years, despite the fact there was plenty of evidence something was wrong and post masters themselves had been saying so for years.

The issue was described as the biggest miscarriage of justice in Brtish history (and it is still yet to be resolved)

A vivid real life example of how big companies can never be trusted to 'do the right thing'. They will always follow profit and self interest.

How chief executives when allowed to be a law unto themselves abuse this power and the arrogance that they do not have to answer to anyone. (nor have they to date)

Riveting watch.

This four-part ITV series appears to have really captured the British public imagination, the furious reaction to it has seen the show's cause taken up in the national press, highlighted in the nightly television news, seen questions asked of the P. M. and indeed filtered directly through to the mood of the people on the street.

The crux of the matter was the appalling mistreatment of sub-postmasters up and down the country following the enforced imposition of the new Horizon computer system on them by the State-owned General Post Office. In a significant number of cases, the system threw up financial irregularities for no good reason, implicitly stating that when the business owner did their daily cash-balance they were now mysteriously in debt to the GPO and were contractually obliged to make good the shortfall, out of their own pockets. These sums, although they started relatively low, soon grew exponentially to significant levels often into 5-figure amounts leaving the postmasters, after exhausting the almost non-existent and unsympathetic help-line assistance of the I. T. company responsible for the system's installation, Fujitsu, found themselves taken to court to repay their so-called debt.

For pretty much all of them, this meant not only financial stress and indeed ruin, with many remortgaging their houses or putting in their own and even their families' life-savings to meet the "debt", but of course as respected members of the community often at the social hub of the towns and villages they served, their good names were dragged through the dirt with their families suffering alongside them. Sadly, for some, the strain understandably proved too much with a number suffering mental health issues, as we see one poor man commit suicide and another woman enter a state of chronic depression which saw her too attempt suicide and require ECGT to assist her recovery.

It took one of the middle-aged victims who with his wife lost his own post office and, now relocated to the scenic backdrop of the Carnarvon Hills, to decide to fight back, specifically by trying to find out if he was the only one afflicted by the malfunctioning computer system, as he'd been officially told there had been no other complaints registered.

By getting an article published in a national computer magazine - these were obviously the days before social networking - he learns of others like him who've suffered a similar fate and so starts to organise a protest group to take their collective complaints up the ladder. Helped in this by a sympathetic M. P., they gradually make headway but not before the establishment tries to block them, using some distinctly unsavoury, indeed sometimes sinister tactics to try to make the issue go away.

But thankfully, for once, truth will out and with the help of an initially reluctant and nervous whistle-blower at Fujitsu testifying to their ability to remotely access the owners' accounts, the group finally won their case and accepted a multi-milllion pound settlement, without admitted liability naturally, although sadly about 80% of this was eaten up by the all-too-familiar "legal-costs". Still, the judgement did mean that all their false convictions were cancelled on appeal, thus restoring their good names and clearing the criminal records of those who'd fought and lost their earlier cases but even so, this was still a shocking indictment of the abuse carried out in the name of the state by faceless, uncaring, some of them even ennobled executives who couldn't be bothered to examine these low-level complaints and check if their "foolproof" system could somehow be at fault.

It must have seemed a bit of a tough proposition bringing what on paper seems such a dry subject to life on the small-screen, but by focusing on the different human-interest angles and contrasting these with the uncaring response of the empowered civil-servants, it made for gripping television. Helped by a sympathetic ensemble cast, headed by the redoubtable Toby Jones being ideally cast in the title role as the little David who decided to take on the national Goliath, it certainly stirred the blood of my wife and I who are both now pleased to see the issue back in the public eye.

We too now hope for further restitution for the affected parties, even as we're told over the end credits that four of the victims committed suicide and many others have died in the over twenty intervening years. Almost as importantly we hope too that those who in their jobs-worth way inhumanely stopped the truth coming out and yet have escaped any public censure far less conviction for their part in the scandalous cover-up, get their individual come-uppance.

If you're not moved by this story you probably fit the job description for a job in the Post Office, or maybe our government? It's a truly shocking story and identifies some names who should hang their heads in shame whilst also pinpointing some of the good people in our society. I read one paper review that claimed the dramatisation lacked drama. Lacked drama! There's drama enough in this story to stand strong, how it wrecked lives and enriched others, the slow slog through molasses in search of the truth, but maybe some people aren't happy without some crash bang wallop? This is a very human tale of massive injustice and corporate cover up. Surely now there's momentum to bring justice and apologies to those still around to receive it? Fingers crossed ...