New series dramatizes a groundbreaking legal battle that rocked Britain’s postal service
When it debuted in the U.K. earlier this year, Mr Bates vs the Post Office made waves for shining the light on a shameful chapter in British history. Not only was the four-part miniseries become the most-watched British series of the year (so far, at least), it also sparked so much controversy that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak introduced a new law to pardon the victims who’d been wrongly convicted in one of the biggest scandals in British history.
Toby Jones stars as the series’ titular Alan Bates, following the very real story of one man’s quest to hold the government-owned postal service — Post Office Limited — accountable for an error that led to hundreds of people being wrongly imprisoned.
As early as the year 2000, sub-postmasters — a title attributed to a selection of self-employed, Post Office Ltd.-approved post office managers — from all over the U.K. began to notice errors in their records. Hoping to rectify the issues and dedicated to solving a potentially huge system failure, several subpostmasters — including Bates, who was located in Llandudno, Wales — began voicing their concerns to Post Office Ltd. about its Horizon IT system, implemented to properly manage the business’s various accounts. Instead of being praised for their proactivity and diligence, however, the subpostmasters were shocked to find themselves at the centre of a nationwide scandal.
“Horizon is an extremely robust system which operates over our entire Post Office network and successfully records millions of transactions each day,” Post Office Ltd. told ComputerWeekly.com in 2009. “There is no evidence that points to any fault with the technology.”
Confident in its own system, the British postal service chose to prosecute 900 of their “sub” employees from 1999 to 2015, sending a staggering 236 of them to jail for assorted financial “losses.”
Thankfully, due to the hard work and determination of Bates and the 500 or so fellow subpostmasters he led, Horizon and Post Office Ltd. were found responsible for a gross miscarriage of justice, with Horizon on the hook for nearly £60 million in damages to affected subpostmasters after 19 years of legal battles.
“Our ambition in telling this story was simply that the subpostmasters felt heard,” said series executive producer Patrick Spence. “We were so angry on their behalf, we wanted others to feel it, too; and they did: the whole country is angry now! They rose up to stand beside the subpostmasters with such determination and such rage that the prime minister had no choice but to act within days. They certainly feel heard now.”
The limited series — which co-stars Monica Dolan (Pride), Julie Hesmondhalgh (Coronation Street), Will Mellor (Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps), Amy Nuttall (Emmerdale Farm), Susan Brown (Game of Thrones), Conor Mullen (Red Rock), Lesley Nicol (Downton Abbey) and Ifan Huw Dafydd (Holby City), to name a few — resulted in consequential action on the part of King Charles III, who formally revoked former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells’ (portrayed by His Dark Materials’ Lia Williams) CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire award) on February 23, 2024, with full support from the PM on account of “bringing the honours system into disrepute.”
“Mr Bates vs The Post Office is a testament to the people who persisted in their search for truth and justice,” added Susanne Simpson, another of the series’ executive producers. “The producers of this powerful drama have reignited the public interest in the subpostmasters’ 20-year quest for justice.”
Mr Bates Vs the Post Office on Masterpiece air Sunday, April 7, on WTVS and KCTS