Hats off to ITV for another excellent television series.

ITV’s last major success was Downton Abbey and, albeit some years later, they succeeded again with Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which aired in four instalments over the 2023 Christmas season.

It is hard to imagine that it is based on a true story, given the events that came to light, yet subpostmasters — those who operate Post Office counters outside the Crown Post Offices in the UK — really did suffer financially, professionally and personally.

Subpostmasters are at the heart of their communities. They are viewed universally as being upstanding, honest citizens. As everyone uses the Post Office, subpostmasters are the most visible — and the most trusted — people in their towns and villages.

Much has happened already in the New Year as the Government is continuing action in favour of British subpostmasters the length and breadth of the country over costly mistakes involving the Post Office’s Horizon computer system.

Fortunately, a former subpostmaster by the name of Alan Bates took on the behemoth of the Post Office over 20 years ago and, doggedly, is winning the battle. He is still working on seeing justice done.

Television review

On New Year’s Day 2024, The Telegraph reviewed the programme, saying ‘you will be left seething’. Excerpts follow, purple emphases mine:

The Post Office Horizon scandal presents the dramatist with fiendish hurdles. The timescale is vast, the cast list of victims is innumerable, the legal landscape is as befogged as Jarndyce vs Jarndyce. Also, the villain is a computer terminal that clunks and blinks and never says a word.

And yet the story is also an open goal. Rarely in the legal history of blameless Davids going into battle with bullying Goliaths has a just cause come up against such a manifestly evil enemy. To load the dice even more, this Goliath simpers in a dog collar.

Mr Bates vs the Post Office (ITV1) establishes its moral position in the opening frames as Alan Bates (Toby Jones) and his other half, Suzanne (Julie Hesmondhalgh), are turfed out of their north Wales sub post office by big glowering men who arrive in a cruel fleet of black saloons that may as well be Panzer tanks.

The drama positions Bates as a caped crusader who, tirelessly over many years, simply refuses to let a corporate bully get away with insisting that its Horizon accounting system works and hundreds of sub-postmasters are therefore thieves. Jones, all cheer and steel, is simply perfect as the little man who proves undefeatable.

Two famous people are in it. One is the Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi who plays himself. The other is the former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells, who also took Holy Orders in the Anglican Church during that time. The programme depicts her at work as well as in a church pulpit. Oh, my:

At a guess, the CEO, CBE and former priest will scarcely be able to show her face in public after this merciless pummelling. Even former Cabinet Minister Nadhim Zahawi convinces as himself, getting het up on a select committee.

The review concludes:

It’s never subtle. While illness and depression, self-harm and suicide, plus a violent robbery, afflict the sub-postmasters, the Post Office’s glassy head office is basically the Death Star. Bates fights the good fight from a white house in a north Wales valley that shimmers like Eden.

But fuelled by righteous rage and sheer incredulity at a corporate malfeasance that can never be fully explained, it’s undeniably powerful and finally redemptive. “We just cling to a notion, don’t we,” someone says, “that people can’t be that bad.” I’ve rarely felt more manipulated by a drama, and rarely resented it less.

Media coverage

Parliament was in recess until Monday, January 8. Meanwhile, the series and the scandal it portrayed received non-stop media coverage.

On Friday, January 5, the Mail reported:

The scandalous persecution of hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters, wrongly accused of theft, false accounting and fraud, and cruelly dragged through the courts, was brought to life in this week’s hit ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office.

It details the heartbreaking story of Britain’s biggest ever miscarriage of justice, which saw more than 700 innocent people convicted – of which 263 were imprisoned – and threw hundreds more into bankruptcy and financial ruin. At least four committed suicide.

The long struggle by victims seeking to show how a faulty computer system named Horizon – rather than dishonest sub-postmasters – was to blame for cash going missing from Post Office tills was endlessly frustrated by the organisation’s senior staff.

The drama forensically examines how the Post Office chose to fight tooth and nail to prevent the truth from coming out, giving misleading information to Parliament, the public and at least one High Court judge in the process.

Eventually it was ordered to pay nearly £60 million in compensation to 555 victims, while a public inquiry into the whole sorry business is now underway. 

But astronomical legal costs mean that hundreds of sub-postmasters remain out of pocket, while scores have died before receiving justice.

Yet while the sub-postmasters and their families’ lives were ruined, several prominent members of the Boss Class which ran the three institutions most responsible for the scandal — the Post Office, IT firm Fujitsu and Her Majesty’s Government – went on to bigger and better things. Here we look at how they’ve prospered…

Excerpts from the article continue below.

How it happened

This is how Horizon developed. Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, signed off the project in 1999.

Fujitsu, which took over Britain’s ICL, developed Horizon.

I’m going to borrow reader comments from a Guido Fawkes post to summarise in a nutshell how the project developed and progressed:

The software was a DHSS system designed around a Benefits Card which would be accepted at Post Offices. It was running late from the beginning, trials failed and neither the DHSS nor the PO wanted it. The problem was that a complete cancellation (lawyers for the Cabinet Office looked at ‘time of the essence’ clauses) would have led to a funding problem/going concern issues for ICL/Fujitsu UK as well as embarassment for Fujitsu Japan and Japan/UK relations. There were high level representations in Tokyo/London at Ambassador level. Ministers were split on what to do but Blair overruled in 1999 and cancelled the DHSS contract and rolled over some of the abortive cost onto the PO contract. Blair kept his ‘modernising’ New Labour look, Fujitsu was promised more work and Michio Naruto, Fujitsu top man, was to be given a[n honorary] CBE. The benefits system was saved from a potential disaster and the PO was thrown to the wolves, the PO management having been called “inept” by the Blair cabinet (at least they got that right). The Blair government knew … Horizon had big issues.

All this is sourced from a 600 page report “The Origins of a Disaster” by Eleanor Shaikh. There is also a 6 page summary. The report was lodged with the Inquiry and Eleanor, a solicitor who happened to strike up a conversation with her local Postmistress, is pushing for Tony Blair to answer questions at the Inquiry. The report uses government archived documents and FoIs. It is also on the JFSA website and is astonishing and a masterpierce.

Another comment describes how unreliable Horizon came to be:

The Horizon system was originally designed by Post Office counters staff and then it soon became clear that the Civil Servants wanted to make lots of changes and lots of bolt ons, for example, plastic swipe cards instead of pension books. They also made lots of changes to the nominal ledger tables, in the way it split out costs and in the end the coding became alphabet soup. A few people on the project at the Post Office who warned of issues were made redundant, and even when the Post Office had an independent report into the system, they did not like the outcome, so they got rid of the contractor. This is a big cover up for the civil servants who were allowed to make spec changes and pressure the contractors to come in on budget and on time despite the issues. The MOT system had all sorts of problems on a smaller scale when it was rolled out. Some of the PCs had been in store for 4 years and when they plugged them in, did not work, and the dial up system crashed on a regular basis.

Subpostmasters were told in their contracts that they were entirely liable for any shortfalls in their Post Office accounts.

The Post Office told the subpostmasters that no one from the Post Office had access to their systems. That was true.

What the Post Office neglected to say was that Fujitsu had remote access to the subpostmasters’ systems.

This is what transpired shortly after the Millennium once subpostmasters began using the Horizon system:

2000-2002: There are more than 100 prosecutions based on faulty Horizon data in three years. Six branch managers are convicted in 2000, while 41 subpostmasters are prosecuted in 2001 and another 64 in 2002.

May 2002: Shopkeeper Baljit Sethi contacts the Brentwood Gazette newspaper to raise concerns about Horizon errors at his Post Office in Brentwood, Essex, which showed a £17,000 shortfall. The Post Office refutes that the system is faulty.

2003: The Post Office terminates Alan Bates’s contract as a subpostmaster after he refused to accept liability for alleged losses at his branch. He and his wife lost the £65,000 they had invested in his branch.

January 2004: Alan Bates writes a letter to Computer Weekly magazine about his problems with the Horizon system. He writes: ‘We have lost our investment and livelihood by daring to raise questions over a computer system we had thrust upon us’.

January 2006: Subpostmaster Lee Castleton fights a civil case against the Post Office after it falsely accused him of stealing £35,000 from his branch in Bridlington, East Yorkshire.

Castleton represents himself as he is unable to afford a lawyer, and loses the case. Ordered to pay £321,000 in legal costs, he is forced to declare bankruptcy.

You could not make this up!

It was around 2005 or 2006 that Private Eye began reporting on the subpostmasters’ struggle with the Post Office over Horizon.

Computer Weekly did not pick up the story until 2009, which isn’t surprising, considering that Fujitsu would have sent in press releases or given interviews about their ongoing projects and probably placed job adverts in the back. By then, I was semi-retired and was no longer reading it.

However, I did read the Private Eye columns and was horrified at what they had uncovered.

Computer Weekly has a summarised timeline of what happened from 2009 to 2021:

• • May 2009: Bankruptcy, prosecution and disrupted livelihoods – postmasters tell their story.
  • September 2009: Postmasters form action group after accounts shortfall.
  • November 2009: Post Office theft case deferred over IT questions.
  • May 2010: A pilot of the new Horizon Online system at Royal Mail has been scaled back after connectivity problems and outages.
  • February 2011: Post Office faces legal action over alleged accounting system failures.
  • October 2011: 85 subpostmasters seek legal support in claims against Post Office computer system.
  • June 2012: Post Office launches external review of system at centre of legal disputes.
  • January 2013: Post Office admits Horizon system needs more investigation.
  • January 2013: Post Office announces amnesty for Horizon evidence.
  • January 2013: Post Office wants to get to bottom of IT system allegations.
  • June 2013: Investigation into Post Office accounting system to drill down on strongest cases.
  • July 2013: Post Office Horizon system investigation reveals concerns.
  • October 2013: End in sight for subpostmaster claims against Post Office’s Horizon accounting system.
  • October 2013: Former Lord Justice of Appeal Hooper joins Post Office Horizon investigation.
  • November 2013: 150 subpostmasters file claims over “faulty” Horizon accounting system.
  • September 2014: Fresh questions raised over Post Office IT system’s role in fraud cases.
  • December 2014: MPs blast Post Office over IT system investigation and remove backing.
  • December 2014: Why MPs lost faith in the Post Office’s IT investigation, but vowed to fight on.
  • December 2014: MPs to debate subpostmaster IT injustice claims.
  • December 2014: MP accuses Post Office of acting “duplicitously” in IT investigation.
  • January 2015: MPs force inquiry into Post Office subpostmaster mediation scheme.
  • January 2015: Post Office faces grilling by MPs over Horizon accounting system.
  • February 2015: Post Office CIO will talk to any subpostmaster about IT problems, promises CEO.
  • March 2015: Post Office ends working group for IT system investigation day before potentially damaging report.
  • March 2015: MPs seek reassurance over Post Office mediation scheme.
  • March 2015: Retiring MP aims to uncover truth of alleged Post Office computer system problems.
  • April 2015: Post Office failed to investigate account shortfalls before legal action, report claims.
  • April 2015: Criminal Courts Review Commission set to review subpostmasters’ claims of wrongful prosecution.
  • May 2015: IT system related to subpostmaster prosecutions under review by CCRC.
  • June 2015: Post Office looking to replace controversial Horizon system with IBM, says MP.
  • July 2015: Campaigners call for independent inquiry into Post Office Horizon IT system dispute.
  • October 2015: James Arbuthnot takes Post Office IT fight to House of Lords.
  • November 2015: The union that represents Post Office subpostmasters has warned of a problem with the Horizon accounting system.
  • November 2015: An email from Post Office IT support reveals a problem with the Horizon system and supporting processes that could lead to accounting errors.
  • November 2015: Group litigation against Post Office being prepared in Horizon dispute.
  • February 2016: Post Office faces group litigation over Horizon IT as subpostmasters fund class action.
  • June 2016: Post Office chairman Tim Parker says there would be “considerable risk” associated with changing its Horizon computer system.
  • November 2016: The legal team hired by a group of subpostmasters will take their case to the next stage.
  • January 2017: The group action against the Post Office that alleges subpostmasters have been wrongly punished for accounting errors gets green light from the High Court of Justice.
  • March 2017: 1,000 subpostmasters apply to join IT-related group litigation against Post Office.
  • April 2017: Investigation into claims of miscarriages of justice in relation to a Post Office accounting system has appointed a forensic accountant firm.
  • May 2017: Hundreds of subpostmasters have applied to join IT-related legal action since March.
  • July 2017: Post Office defence in computer system legal case due this week.
  • August 2017: Campaigners submit initial evidence in group litigation against Post Office over controversial Horizon IT system.
  • October 2017: Subpostmasters’ group action against the Post Office reaches an important milestone.
  • November 2017: An end is in sight for subpostmasters’ campaign against alleged wrongful prosecution, which they blame on a faulty computer system.
  • November 2017: The High Court judge managing the subpostmasters versus Post Office legal case over an allegedly faulty computer system tells legal teams to cooperate.
  • January 2018: Forensic investigation into Post Office IT system at centre of legal case nears completion.
  • April 2018: Criminal Cases Review Commission forensic examination of the IT system at the centre of a legal case against the Post Office has raised further questions.
  • May 2018: Post Office branches unable to connect to Horizon computer system for several hours after morning opening time.
  • October 2018: After over a decade of controversy, next week marks the beginning of a court battle between subpostmasters and the Post Office.
  • November 2018: Case against Post Office in relation to allegedly faulty computer system begins in High Court.
  • November 2018: High Court case in which subpostmasters are suing the Post Office has revealed a known problem with a computer system at the core of the dispute.
  • November 2018: A High Court trial, where subpostmasters are suing the Post Office for damages caused by an allegedly faulty IT system, ends second week.
  • November 2018: Post Office director admits to Horizon errors and not sharing details with subpostmaster network.
  • November 2018: The High Court trial in which subpostmasters are suing the Post Office has reached an important stage.
  • December 2018: CCRC may hold off subpostmaster decision until after Post Office Horizon trial.
  • December 2018: Court case where subpostmasters are suing the Post Office set to span at least four trials and extend into 2020.
  • January 2019: Subpostmasters’ campaign group attacks Post Office CEO Paula Vennells’ New Year honour amid ongoing court case.
  • January 2019: Thousands of known errors on controversial Post Office computer system to be revealed.
  • March 2019: Tech under spotlight at High Court in second subpostmasters versus Post Office trial.
  • March 2019: Post Office considered Horizon IT system “high-risk”, court told.
  • March 2019: CCRC watching Post Office Horizon trial closely.
  • March 2019: Judge rules that Post Office showed “oppressive behaviour” in response to claimants accused of accounting errors they blamed on Horizon IT system.
  • March 2019: Post Office “lacked humanity” in the treatment of subpostmasters, says peer.
  • March 2019: A High Court judge heard that the Post Office did not investigate a computer system error that could cause losses, despite being offered evidence.
  • March 2019: The Post Office legal team in the case brought by more than 500 subpostmasters has called for the judge to be recused after questioning his impartiality.
  • March 2019: A senior civil servant asked the Post Office to repay public money it had wrongly allocated to paying legal costs.
  • April 2019: Subpostmaster claimants’ legal team makes application for the Post Office to pay millions of pounds of costs associated with trial.
  • April 2019: Post Office to appeal judgment from first Horizon trial.
  • April 2019: The Post Office’s claim that the judge overseeing the case concerning its controversial Horizon IT system was biased has been dismissed.
  • April 2019: MP questions government over Post Office Horizon case.
  • April 2019: Government says no conflict of interest in trial despite Post Office chairman’s dual role.
  • May 2019: The Court of Appeal has refused the Post Office’s application to appeal a major decision in the Horizon IT trial.
  • May 2019: The Post Office has applied for permission to appeal judgments from the first trial in its IT-related legal battle with subpostmasters.
  • May 2019: The judge in the Post Office Horizon trial has ordered the organisation to pay the legal costs of its courtroom adversaries, and refused to give permission to appeal a major judgment.
  • June 2019: Post Office asks Court of Appeal for permission to appeal judgment in first Horizon trial.
  • July 2019: The Post Office has admitted that some subpostmasters are at risk of accounts not balancing due to an error it does not understand.
  • July 2019: Problem revealed during High Court trial left subpostmaster with £18,000 surplus after IT system failed to register full amount of cash scanned in.
  • August 2019: Subpostmasters suffering slow running and frozen terminals while Post Office searches for a fix to issues apparently caused by a software update.
  • August 2019: The Post Office has fixed the latest problems with its Horizon system, affecting hundreds of branches. 
  • October 2019: A High Court judgment for a trial that focused on the Post Office’s IT system at the centre of a multimillion-pound litigation will be announced early next month.
  • November 2019: The Court of Appeal has rejected a Post Office application to appeal judgments made in its multimillion-pound battle with subpostmasters over IT system failures.
  • November 2019: Peer calls for clear-out of Post Office board after Court of Appeal confirms major court defeat.
  • December 2019: The Post Office has settled its long-running legal dispute with subpostmasters, and will pay £57.75m in damages.
  • December 2019: Subpostmansters ended their legal battle with the Post Office at the optimal time, according to the lawyer that managed the High Court action.
  • December 2019: Subpostmansters proved right on IT system failures as calls for full public inquiry mount.
  • December 2019: Criminal Courts Review Commission to review Horizon judgment “swiftly”.
  • December 2019: National Federation of Subpostmasters cries foul after court ruling on controversial computer system.
  • December 2019: Former Post Office CEO apologises to subpostmasters over Horizon scandal.
  • December 2019: Call for former Post Office CEO to step down from public roles after IT court battle lost.
  • January 2020: Fujitsu must face scrutiny following Post Office Horizon trial judgment.
  • January 2020: Subpostmaster group calls for government to pay legal costs for Horizon trial.
  • January 2020: Why subpostmasters are calling on the government to pay Horizon trial costs.
  • January 2020: Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy says it did not make decisions in the Post Office’s recent court battle.
  • January 2020: Government should not be allowed to dismiss subpostmasters’ claims over Horizon IT scandal.
  • January 2020: Police sent information about potential Fujitsu staff perjury in subpostmaster prosecutions.
  • January 2020: Prosecutions are a significant step closer to being sent to the Court of Appeal as Criminal Courts Review Commission forms a group of commissioners to review them.
  • January 2020: Alan Bates: The “details man” the Post Office paid the price for ignoring.
  • February 2020: The government has refused to pay the huge legal costs subpostmasters incurred in their battle with the government-owned Post Office, which they won.
  • February 2020: Members of Parliament seeking a public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon scandal face huge challenges, but pressure and time could force justice.
  • February 2020: Calls for inquiry into Post Office IT scandal increase in Parliament, with cross-party support.
  • February 2020: Care Quality Commission to review concerns over Paula Vennells’ appointment after they were raised by a former NHS consultant psychiatrist.
  • February 2020: Government admits it was too passive managing Post Office as parliamentary pressure builds.
  • February 2020: Minister says Post Office IT experts misled the government when it asked questions about subpostmasters’ concerns over Horizon IT system.
  • March 2020: Boris Johnson commits to “getting to the bottom of” Post Office Horizon IT scandal.
  • March 2020: Boris Johnson’s commitment to inquiry into Post Office scandal in doubt.
  • March 2020: MPs call on PM to commit to full public inquiry into Post Office Horizon IT scandal.
  • March 2020: Those who did not play by the rules in Post Office Horizon scandal “should face prosecution”.
  • March 2020: MPs told to hold to account those responsible for Post Office Horizon IT scandal.
  • March 2020: The Post Office has sparked anger with secret settlements with subpostmasters outside the recent legal action against it.
  • March 2020: Labour MP Karl Turner tells Computer Weekly that the Post Office Horizon scandal is the most grotesque version of predatory capitalism he has ever seen.
  • March 2020: MP Kevan Jones has warned a government minister not to repeat the mistakes of predecessors in relation to the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.
  • March 2020: Criminal Cases Review Commission to use Microsoft Teams to ensure review of subpostmaster prosecutions is held on time.
  • March 2020: Post Office postpones subpostmaster compensation scheme amid Covid-19 crisis.
  • March 2020: Meeting reviewing subpostmaster applications to appeal criminal prosecutions moves into second day.
  • March 2020: Subpostmaster prosecutions to be considered by Court of Appeal for miscarriages of justice.
  • March 2020: How subpostmasters made legal history with biggest referral of potential miscarriages of justice.
  • April 2020: Met Police examines information about evidence given in court by Fujitsu staff on the Horizon IT system.
  • May 2020: Subpostmasters who had their lives ruined by the Post Office’s faulty IT system have received their damages after a High Court victory.
  • May 2020: A senior Post Office executive at the centre of an IT scandal, who tried to mislead a High Court judge in relation to it, has left the organisation without fanfare despite many years of service.
  • May 2020: Post Office re-examines hundreds of prosecutions that could have resulted from faults in Horizon IT system.
  • June 2020: A campaign group representing subpostmasters wrongly prosecuted for theft and false accounting by the Post Office is raising money to help clear the names of victims of the scandal.
  • June 2020: Subpostmasters to force scrutiny of government’s role in Post Office IT scandal.
  • June 2020: The Criminal Cases Review Commission sends 47 more subpostmaster cases to Court of Appeal and asks government to review private prosecution powers.
  • June 2020: Select committee chair writes to former Post Office CEO demanding answers over her role in IT scandal.
  • June 2020: The government has been accused of launching a review that fails in getting to the bottom of one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in UK history.
  • June 2020: Subpostmasters will not cooperate with government review into IT scandal.
  • June 2020: The government’s proposed review of the Post Office IT scandal has received a further setback as forensic accountants join subpostmasters in refusing to back it.
  • June 2020: Call for government review of Post Office Horizon scandal to have the power to force individuals to give evidence under oath.
  • June 2020: Subpostmasters seeking justice in the Post Office Horizon IT scandal are regaining momentum in Parliament.
  • June 2020: Healthcare regulator will be discussing concerns about former NHS boss chairing an NHS trust at an upcoming meeting.
  • June 2020: Second Sight is working with law firm in appeals by subpostmasters against criminal convictions in Horizon IT scandal.
  • June 2020: Post Office and Fujitsu blame each other for many of the failings in the Horizon IT scandal that wrecked lives.
  • June 2020: Parliamentary Justice Committee to hold short inquiry into the rules and regulations surrounding private organisations’ ability to initiate criminal proceedings.
  • July 2020: Victims of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal need to raise thousands of pounds in a week or those responsible for their suffering will avoid scrutiny.
  • July 2020: The government is set to face scrutiny over its involvement in the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, described as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in modern UK history.
  • September 2020: