IT HAS TAKEN A TELEVISION DRAMA FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO EXONERATE THE VICTIMS OF THE UK’S LARGEST MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE
Long after the credits rolled on the final episode of Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, the TV drama continued to be one of the most talked-about – and far-reaching –shows ever to hit our screens. ITV’s four-part series, which pulled in huge audiences when it aired last month, exposed the real-life scandal of hundreds of community sub-postmasters and postmistresses whose lives were destroyed when they were falsely accused of theft and fraud by the Post Office in the 1990s and 2000s, all because of afaulty computerised accounting system.
As soon as the show began airing on New Year’s Day, it provoked unprecedented public fury and outrage over the 25-year battle for justice, which only intensified as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemned “one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history”. More than 130 new potential victims came forward as the Metropolitan Police announced afresh investigation, while former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells agreed to return her CBE, following apetition signed by well over one million people. The real Alan Bates –who has spent the past two decades fighting for justice, and is portrayed by Toby Jones on screen, said, “This show has reignited the whole issue.”
MYSTERIOUS LOSSES
The controversy began in 1999, when sub-postmasters and postmistresses (SPMs) around the country began seeing unexplained discrepancies and losses from the newly installed Horizon accounting system. The computerised software, developed by Fujitsu, was meant to replace staff’s traditional paper accounts to help them balance the books, but instead, the faulty program wrongly started finding apparent anomalies in the accounts, leading Post Office bosses to accuse their staff of stealing money.
Seema Misra and her husband Davinder immediately noticed problems with the system when they took over the West Byfleet branch in Surrey in 2005. On Seema’s first day of training, the program showed ashortfall of £80. “The trainer told me the accounts were never exact, and that Ishould just balance the books with money from the shop till,” she said. “I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t tally, especially when it happened again the next day, but the trainer just shrugged it off.”
It was asign of things to come as her books and takings continued to show discrepancies. Fearing for her job, she tried to use her own cash to cover the shortfall, which grew to £74k. “I was desperately trying to pay back the missing money –Ieven sold some of my jewellery,” Seema admitted. She was suspended in 2008 after the Post Office carried out an audit, and was given a 15-month prison sentence af
