How a TV drama is helping bring justice in the Post Office scandal

Good morning. It is almost a quarter of a century since a new digital accounting system was rolled out across the Post Office. In 2000, sub-postmaster Alan Bates first reported his concerns about unexplained discrepancies in the Horizon software. It is 15 years since Computer Weekly first revealed the stories of some of the sub-postmasters who had been wrongly fined or imprisoned after convictions for false accounting, five years since the first tranche of 555 workers won a landmark legal victory against the Post Office, and two years since a public inquiry started to hear evidence into the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history.

And yet the story is far from over. Today, only 93 of 736 convictions have been overturned, and only 30 people have accepted final compensation settlements. Now, an ITV drama centred on Bates’ story has brought a new focus to the scandal – and yesterday, ministers agreed urgent plans to clear the victims’ names.

So why was a TV drama able to do what no amount of reporting, campaigning, or court cases apparently could? For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Neil Hudgell, whose law firm has acted for about 300 of the the victims, about the painful delays facing the sub-postmasters seeking justice – and where this extraordinary story will go next. Here are the headlines.

Five big stories

In depth: ‘It’s a real breakthrough moment’

At its heart, this extraordinary saga is about a group of workers who lost their jobs and their reputations – and in some cases served prison time – because their employer wrongly accused them of theft or fraud. You can read Mark Sweney’s useful primer on the story here. But it is also about accountability for an apparent cover-up even after the Post Office realised it was in the wrong, and how the story is yet to be resolved for so many victims.

Postmasters may be thrilled that the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office (starring Toby Jones, above) has brought the story back to the centre of public and political attention. But they might also question why it took a fictionalised version of their story to do so when the reality was bleak enough.

In an opinion piece today, Gaby Hinsliff reflects on why the wheels of justice have turned so slowly. “The most dangerous period for campaigners can be after they’ve won the long-fought victory,” she writes. “In a world with too many newer injustices, the bureaucratic grind of actually getting what was promised is easily overlooked.”

How the ITV drama has changed things

In her review last week of Mr Bates vs The Post Office, Rebecca Nicholson wrote: “The Post Office scandal has been so long-running that it can feel as if the staggering injustice at the heart of it all has been lost in the dense forest of the details. This makes it human again.”

On the phone yesterday, solicitor Neil Hudgell – who has already helped 73 former post office operators clear their names – reflected on the “absolute bedlam and madness” of renewed attention to the story.

At least 60 of those affected have died awaiting compensation. “Of course it’s regrettable if the penny hasn’t dropped for some people before now,” Hudgell said. “We’re focused on the here and now, mapping out the best possible route to closure for our clients. The drama has condensed a period of 20 years into four hours in a way that the British public’s psyche can grasp what’s gone on. So it’s a real breakthrough moment.”

New victims come forward

Last week, Hudgell told the BBC that about 50 new potential victims of the scandal had contacted him. By yesterday, he said, the figure stood at about 100. “Quite a lot of them say that the drama has helped them find the courage to come forward – seeing the wave of sympathy that’s been generated,” he said.

Many of the new enquiries are from those who may not have been convicted but suffered devastating consequences all the same. “There are people who have lost their incomes or their homes,” he said. “It’s hard to know the overall scale of that. And one of the sad features is that quite a few of them are people looking for redress for loved ones who have since died.”

There are stories of people who have faced great hardship or personal cost because of an injustice visited on a family member – but there is no provision for compensation for family members in the existing schemes. Hudgell said that there was considerable support for a change to include families.

“There are suicides of spouses, miscarriages, admissions to psychiatric care. One guy I spoke to previously said, ‘I went to prison, I got it easy – I could hide in my cell, but my wife had to face the wrath of the community.’ Each of these stories on its own is a tragedy.”

Changes to the process

On Sunday, Rishi Sunak said that he was considering a proposal to exonerate the sub-postmasters en masse by act of parliament.

“I think that that’s a big step that needs proper consideration,” said Hudgell. “The more pragmatic and realistic step is to take the appeal process out of the hands of the Post Office, and hand it to the Crown Prosecution Service.”

The Post Office’s role in the appeals process derives from the fact that it had the power to bring prosecutions itself: “While they’re using independent counsel and there has been an enhanced level of scrutiny of the process, if these prosecutions had been brought today, it would have been the CPS handling them. They [the CPS] have the independence to do this.”

The government is also understood to be considering blocking the Post Office from challenging appeals, allowing operators to appeal en masse. And minister Kevin Hollinrake said yesterday that the Post Office’s role in private prosecutions will now be under review.

Accountability at the Post Office

There have never been any prosecutions of the Post Office, Fujitsu, or members of their staff – a fact that has caused anger among some victims and campaigners. But the Metropolitan police now says that the Post Office is under criminal investigation over “potential fraud offences” of perjury and perverting the course of justice.

Two people have been interviewed under caution as part of that process, but there have been no arrests. Two witnesses for Fujitsu in the trials are also under investigation.

“My clients are not vindictive,” said Hudgell. “But they are very anxious to see proper accountability. It’s noticeable in the process of the inquiry that successive Post Office witnesses never accept culpability. We need to know who made decisions around prosecution strategies, and who decided, for example, to tell sub-postmasters that they were the only ones having issues with the Horizon system.”

As one of the affected Post Office operators, Hughie Noel Thomas, wrote in his memoir: “With no mention anywhere else that any other sub-postmaster had been implicated in the same way as I had been, it all seemed completely hopeless.”

Short of prosecutions, there is now a growing campaign for former chief executive Paula Vennells, who ran the Post Office while it was denying that there were any problems with the Horizon system, to lose her CBE. Yesterday, the government said Rishi Sunak would “strongly support” a review by the honours forfeiture committee.

What happens next

The current phase of the inquiry, which is focused on actions taken against sub-postmasters, ends in February. The final two phases, focused on areas including responses to the scandal and how Horizon was monitored, could hear evidence from senior Post Office and Fujitsu staff, potentially including Vennells. The whole process is expected to conclude before the end of 2024.

Meanwhile, some have argued that the delays should prompt a serious reconsideration of how major miscarriages of justice with large numbers of victims are considered, and see inquiries radically speeded up.

Hudgell is unpersuaded of that case, and argues instead that it is right that the compensation process proceed as quickly as possible in parallel to the inquiry.

“We have to get to a proper and rigorous outcome,” he said. “The bottom line is that this is an incredibly difficult job – an evolving story playing out in a very public way, in the context of a national institution whose reputation has been broken, but which is churning out millions of documents. It is really difficult to contemplate any way it could be funnelled into one cohesive single process. Some of my clients have waited 20 years – they will tolerate another year.”

What else we’ve been reading

• Patrick Butler’s piece about Kids Company founder Camila Batmanghelidjh, who died last week, is a meticulous and fascinating account of her very public disgrace, and much less noticed exoneration. “She hid the pain very well,” her brother Bobby says. “She knew she was collateral damage in a play happening elsewhere.” Archie

• You’ve seen the winners of the Golden Globes – now get the analysis. Catherine Shoard guides us through 10 things we learned from the awards, including whether Barbie’s buzz is bust, the charm of The Holdovers, and surprise snubs in Los Angeles. Matthew Pearce, newsletters team

• Luke Harding tells the remarkable story of Oleksandr Ivantsov, a Ukrainian soldier who fled the Azovstal steelworks after Russia’s seizure of Mariupol and somehow survived. “I put the probability of success at 1 in 1,000,” Ivantsov says. “Everyone thought I was mad.” Archie

• Economist Carsten Jung makes the case for boosting economic growth through public investment. He argues that investing in green spending in particular will make the economy more sustainable, as both Labour and Conservatives “fixate on distracting debates on inflation”. Matthew

• Ramy Youssef broke new ground with his eponymous TV show, and now he’s moving on to film. Steve Rose spoke to the comedian and actor about his first big movie role in Poor Things, filming in Palestine and hanging out with Taylor Swift. Matthew

Sport

Football | Franz Beckenbauer (above), widely considered to be one of greatest football players of all time, has died at the age of 78. Credited with having created the “sweeper” role in modern football, “Der Kaiser” was one of only two men to win the World Cup as both a player and a manager. Read Jonathan Wilson’s tribute to “the complete modern footballer” and see a life in pictures.

FA Cup | Manchester United progressed to the fourth round of the competition after a comfortable 0-2 win at Wigan. A fine finish from Diogo Dalot and the softest of penalties for Bruno Fernandes secured United a trip to either League Two Newport County or Eastleigh of the National League.

Golf | Nike and Tiger Woods have brought one of the most famous commercial partnerships in sport to an end after 27 years. The partnership – thought to have been worth $500m to Woods over its lifetime – comes as Nike, which stopped making golf equipment in 2016, seeks to cut $2bn in costs.

The front pages

The Guardian leads with “Scramble to clear victims of Post Office fraud scandal”, while the Daily Mail says senior figures are “Shameless” for failing to resign and the Daily Express asks “Why are police ‘failing to deliver’ on Post Office scandal?”. “Fast appeals for wrongly convicted postmasters” – that’s the Times while the i reports “Post Office scandal firm Fujitsu gets major UK government contract”. “1m say strip Post Office Paula of CBE” – the Metro covers the online petition about Paula Vennells. “New Andrew humiliation” says the Daily Mirror about the resurfacing of Epstein allegations, which the person who made them later admitted to making up. The Financial Times has “Deluge of debt feeds fear of backlash in bond markets” while the top story in today’s Daily Telegraph is “Channel 4 in diversity row over white bosses”.

Today in Focus

Cartoon of the day | Rebecca Hendin

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

These days, it’s rare to hear good news when it comes to heating homes. But that has changed for those who have funded “greener, cheaper” air source heat pumps through a means-tested government grant. The success of the scheme has seen the grants double in value, and those eligible are enjoying the benefits.

“We were lighting fires on cold days and wrapping up before – these days we just have heating on all the time. I’m disabled and so it’s been rather good for me,” says Kristin Warry, who has seen her electricity bill halve since she ditched her electric boilerfor a heat pump system in her home (pictured above) two years ago. “It’s a lot warmer, particularly at night. Before we had one or two warm rooms, but now the whole house is warm.”

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