A young Surrey mum, jailed when she was eight weeks pregnant with her second child. An innocent Hampshire grandmother who felt she had "no choice" but to plead guilty to false accounting. A cricket-loving father-of-two who threw himself under a bus after being wrongly accused of theft.
These are just some of tragic stories of the more than 700 sub-postmasters and postmistresses who were convicted of crimes related to the Post Office's faulty Horizon IT system between 1998 and 2015, whose heartbreaking tales of bankruptcies, suicide attempts and jail sentences have been told in a new four-part ITV drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
The series has been called gut-wrenching, long overdue and "so terrifying it could be a Black Mirror episode" for its powerful depiction of what has been called one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in British history.
Some victims were wrongfully sent to prison or financially ruined and forced to declare bankruptcy. Others describe being shunned by their communities following convictions for false accounting and theft. At least 60 have died waiting for justice. Four have taken their own lives. And another 60 or so potential victims have come forward since the drama was aired early this month.
The numbers in the story are undoubtedly shocking — the Met Police has announced a new investigation in the wake of the new TV series and prime minister Rishi Sunak among those calling for a review into former Post Office boss Paula Vennells' CBE.
But like any miscarriage of justice on this scale, the real devil is in the detail; those real-life human stories of the dozens of innocent Post Office workers left to suffer the fallout of years of gaslighting and grave injustice. The fact that so many of their stories are only being told publicly now, thanks to a shiny new TV drama starring an A-list cast, only serves to make the whole thing all the more tragic and anger-inducing.
From those who were wrongly jailed and suffered marriage breakdowns to those who died before their convictions were quashed, these are some of the most powerful stories.
The 'steely' Morris dancer who took on the Post Office, turned down an OBE and became a TV hero
Alan Bates
Post Office: Craig-y-Don, Llandudno, north Wales
There's a scene in the acclaimed new ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office in which Toby Jones — the actor playing Alan Bates, 69, the "steely" underdog hero of the drama thanks to his decades-long fight against the Post Office on behalf of hundreds of his wrongfully-prosecuted colleagues — tells a room full of former sub-postmasters why it's important to join his legal battle against their ex-employer.
“I’ve told you all the things the law is not going to do for us,” the former Morris dancer, cat-owner and keen fell-walker is seen telling his peers in an emotional scene ahead of the court battle. “But I want to talk to you about what brought us together. All those things that we’ve been fighting for ever since.”
Like so many of his former colleagues, Bates — a Liverpool-born graphic-design graduate who met his wife at a clog-dancing event and bought a seaside post office in north Wales in 1998 — had his contract terminated by the Post Office with three months' notice in 2003, after a shortfall in his accounts was found. He had invested £65,000 in the business by this point, and he was accused of owing £1,000. But unlike so many others who were wrongly accused, Bates always refused to accept the accounting errors were his.
He suspected the Horizon computer system was to blame and set up the Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance in 2009, bringing together hundreds of other sub-postmasters together in a 20-year campaign for justice. The campaign resulted in a High Court judgement in 2019 and is still ongoing, as Bates — who is now retired — continues to battle to get justice for each and every one of his colleagues affected by the scandal.
A small happy ending came this week, when Richard Branson spotted Bates' plea for a free holiday and offered him a trip to Necker Island
"At 68, I would love to be able to take my foot off the pedal. But I will stay involved until everyone from the original group who is entitled to compensation receives the full financial redress they're eligible for. Once everyone's received their money, I'll feel I've done my bit," he told a local news outlet last year, around the same time he turned down an OBE in protest against the "insult[ing]" fact that former Post Office boss Paula Vennells still retains her CBE.
Bates' work is still far from finished, as he fights for the remaining victims to receive compensation, but a small happy ending came this week, when Richard Branson spotted Bates' tongue-and-cheek plea for a free holiday in The Times. "Dear Alan, I did get a chance to read your moving interview in The Times, and we’d love to offer you and Suzanne a well earned holiday on Necker Island," Branson wrote in a response that was read out to a choked-up Bates and his wife live on TV this morning. "I can’t think of anyone who deserves a break more. Hopefully see you there."
Jones' on-screen portrayal has been praised for accurately depicting Bates' stubborn, dogged yet humble, unassuming heroism. He might not be glamorous or particularly enjoy the limelight, but his years of hard campaigning — which he spearheaded from the desk at his modest semi overlooking the Welsh countryside, next to a cuddly toy of Postman Pat’s black and white cat Jess — has been called a painful David and Goliath struggle in the UK's biggest miscarriage of justice. The fact that he is a down-to-earth, everyday retiree who one interviewer says reminds her of her own father makes his newfound national hero status all the more moving.
His wife Suzanne Sercombe, 68, who he lives with alongside their black cat Missy, puts it best herself. “He doesn’t like to show vulnerability really, in any way,” she told The Times this week. “If he’s on a mission, nothing’s going to bring him down. It’s not ruthlessness, because he’s very kindly with it. He’s just a very committed person... He doesn’t look like a superhero or a knight in shining armour,” she says. “But if you need somebody to rely upon, he’s your man.”
The factory-worker left bankrupt, despite 91 cries for help
Lee Castleton
Post Office: Bridlington, Yorkshire
91. That's how many times Lee Castleton says he called the Post Office's helpline about issues with the Horizon IT system at his Post Office in Bridlington in Yorkshire.
The former sub-postmaster was 39 and had two young children when he was told he owed a debt of £27,000 to the Post Office, where he worked at the time. He went to court to contest it, but could not afford a barrister and lost. He was left with more than £300,000 in costs and forced to declare bankruptcy — a saga that he says felt like a "war" and tore his family's lives apart.
“We were ostracised in Bridlington," he told Times Radio recently. "We were abused in the streets. Our daughter was bullied. She was on the school bus and spat on by a young boy because [they thought] her father was a thief, and he’d take money from old people.”
We were abused in the streets. Our daughter was bullied. She was on the school bus and spat on by a young boy because they thought her father was a thief
Castleton — a father-of-two described as an "everyday guy" by Will Mellor, the actor who plays him in the ITV drama — says he is still "really, really angry" about the ongoing ordeal. He now works in a factory, after agreeing to a settlement with the Post Office in 2017, and hopes the ITV drama will drum up fresh support for other victims. "It's been very difficult to try to push our cause," he says. “We’re just people from your village shop or your local post office. And it's been really hard to drum up support, it's been very difficult to get people to believe.” He said he hoped those listening would put pressure on those in power to help their cause.
Amy Nuttall, the actress playing his wife Lisa Castleton, is among those calling for Vennells to be stripped of her CBE.
The Surrey mum who was jailed at eight weeks pregnant
Seema Misra
Post Office: West Byfleet, Surrey
Seema Misra, 47, says she would have killed herself when she was jailed for 15 months for theft and false accounting, if it weren't for the fact that she was pregnant with her second child.
The married mother from Surrey had reportedly been trying to conceive a second child for eight years when she was forced to appear at Guildford Crown Court in 2010 after being accused her of stealing £74,000 from the Post Office.
It was her 10-year–old son Aditya's birthday that day, so she dropped him at school and promised she'd be home later to cook him his favourite curry. She collapsed in the dock when the judge read her sentence. “I’d been warned there was a chance I could be jailed," she later told reporters. “But I honestly just couldn’t see for a second how I could be punished like that for something I hadn’t done. I had faith in the justice system, at that point. When the judge said I’d been sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment, I passed out... If I hadn’t been pregnant, I would have taken my own life. I was at rock bottom.”
She ended up serving four months behind bars in Ashford, Surrey, Europe’s largest female prison, where she was placed on suicide watch — an experience she has described as "horrendous" and a "living nightmare".
“It was everything I had imagined and worse. It was unclean, I felt I had limited antenatal care, and I was constantly terrified someone would attack me. I’d convince myself someone was going to stab me and kill my baby. I’d gone from being a pillar of the community to a thief who was stealing money from old people. I never in a million years would have imagined I would have ended up in prison.
Prison was everything I had imagined and worse.... I’d convince myself someone was going to stab me and kill my baby. I’d gone from being a pillar of the community to a thief who was stealing money from old people
“I had no idea what the other inmates had done, but they terrified me. So many of them were taking drugs, and whispering about human trafficking. So many of the women were self-harming. All night I would lie there awake, listening to them screaming and shouting. I didn't trust anyone. I just kept my head down, avoided eye contact, and focused on my baby and my family, and getting home to them. The whole experience was a living nightmare."
Her husband Davinder, now 51, also suffered while Misra was behind bars. He was ostracised by friends and even beaten up by strangers after his wife’s picture appeared on the front page of their local newspaper. He was forced to sell the family shop and start up a taxi firm, which he later had to give up as well because he struggled to work at the same time as looking after their son.
Misra was still wearing her electronic probation tag when she gave birth to her second son, Jairaj, in hospital after her release in 2011. Eight years later, in December 2019, a judge ruled that the Horizon system had been riddled with bugs and Misra's conviction was eventually quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2021 after the shortfall was found to have been caused by the faulty Horizon IT system, not Misra's accounting.
She says she had always suspected something funny was going on with the computer system. On her first day, in 2005, “the trainer told me the accounts were never exact, and that I should just balance the books with money from the shop till. I didn’t really understand why they wouldn’t tally, especially when it happened again the next day, but the trainer just shrugged it of," she recalls. “I started suspecting everybody, and I was desperately trying to pay back the missing money," she remembers. "I even sold some of my jewellery.”
She says she has been suffering for 15 years as a result of the saga and believes the ITV drama is a good thing, but "doesn’t do enough to explain how many people were involved in this and the fight so many of us have had to come together for justice".
The community baker-turned-cleaner who assumed she was guilty for years
Jo Hamilton
Post Office: South Warnborough, Hampshire
In ITV's on-screen adaptation, Hamilton, 66 — now a cleaner and a leading voice in Bates' campaign — is played by Monica Dolan, who portrays her as a warm, trustworthy grandmother, a keen baker and much-loved pillar of her community, running both the Post Office and its in-house café after buying her local village shop in 2001.
One particularly moving scene sees her turning up to court for her sentencing, only to find it packed out with an astounding 74 people from her Hampshire village, who'd turned up to support her, convinced of her innocence.
“[The judge] said to me: ‘Mrs Hamilton, what have you done? These people love you. Why are you in my court pleading guilty to a very serious criminal offence?’," she recently told The Times. "I just looked at him with tears streaming down my face. I was absolutely terrified. I really did think I was going to prison.”Unlike Bates and Castleton, Hamilton was one of the victims of this Post Office scandal who genuinely believed the financial discrepancies she was accused of had been caused by her own mistakes. She didn't tell her husband about the shortfalls for months, thinking all the money would come back. When it didn't, she told him and they re-mortgaged their house, borrowed from friends and maxed out their credit cards.
The judge said to me: ‘Mrs Hamilton, what have you done? These people love you. Why are you in my court pleading guilty to a very serious criminal offence?'
The Post Office sacked her in 2006 and she was charged with the theft of £36,000, pleading guilty to false accounting. "They said if I pleaded guilty to false accounting and paid the £36,000 shortfall, they would drop the theft charge," she has said since. "I felt I had a gun held to my head and had no choice."
Hamilton remortgaged her house again after the charge, and fellow villagers clubbed up to donate £6,000 towards the costs. “I wouldn’t be where I am had I not had the love of the community," she has said since. But she hasn't always had locals' support. There was a time after her court appearance when the headteacher at her granddaughter's school asked her to leave an Easter bonnet-making session because of the conviction.
The grandmother-of-three went onto take a job cleaning fellow villagers' homes and joined Bates' campaign, during which time her parents both had strokes and went onto die of cancer.
She was eventually one of 39 victims who had their case overturned in April last year, by which point both her parents had passed away. "If [Paula Vennells] had stopped [the prosecutions], my mum and dad would have seen me get my conviction quashed and we wouldn’t have had more years of misery.”
The cancer patient who spoke of suicide before his death
Julian Wilson
Post Office: Astwood Bank, Worcestershire
Former sub-postmaster Julian Wilson died of bowel cancer at the age of 67 in 2016, but his widow Karen says the Post Office saga "massively contributed" to his early death.
Wilson had worked at the firm's Astwood Bank branch near Redditch in Worcestershire, where auditors went onto find a shortfall of £27,000. He was suspended from his position as sub-postmaster in 2008, ordered to pay back thousands of pounds and subjected to 300 hours of community service. "We sat in the car afterwards and I just said to him, I can't believe this is happening, it didn't feel like British justice," Karen has since said.
Before the suspension, Karen says she and her husband had spent hours working late into the night trying to work out why the IT system finances would not balance. She went onto sell all of her jewellery, including her engagement ring, to pay the mortgage, and both of them suffered with their mental health; she cut off all her hair while he couldn't sleep and he began to talk about suicide.
When you've got all this misplaced anger, you don't know what to do with it. This did not kill him but it massively contributed to his early death
According to his wife, he "just hid himself for about a year” and would sometimes “just fall apart and talk about suicide”.
Wilson's name was finally cleared, but not until five years after his death, in 2021. "I locked myself in the bathroom and cut all my hair off," she told an inquiry in 2022.
"I'm not an angry lady usually, I'm calm and collected. When you've got all this misplaced anger, you don't know what to do with it. This did not kill him but it massively contributed to his early death."
The Scottish mother-of-two who died of an overdose before her court appearance
Fiona McGowan was 47 when she overdosed on alcohol and antidepressants in 2009, leaving sons aged 12 and 14.
— Tom Witherow (@TomWitherow) December 28, 2021
She had not been informed that the charges had been dropped. Her partner Phil Cowan said: 'I put the blame firmly on the doorstep of the Post Office. It's immoral.' pic.twitter.com/67fE0gACHi
Fiona McGowan
Post Office: Parson's Green in Edinburgh
Scottish sub-postmistress Fiona McGowan and her partner Phil were accused of stealing £30,000 from their Edinburgh Post Office.
The mother-of-two reportedly spiralled into a deep depression following the accusation, and died in her sleep of an accidental overdose of alcohol and antidepressants while waiting to appear in court in 2009, aged 47.
Her conviction was one of many to be overturned years later, in 2021. "For Fiona, all of this comes much too late. For her, there can be no justice," her partner Phil Cowan, who now lives in Thailand, said at the time.
Fiona may well be still alive today if she had not been facing court for false accusations of theft and died before clearing her name
"Fiona may well be still alive today if she had not been facing court for false accusations of theft and died before clearing her name."
Cowan later found out that the charges had in fact been dropped before his partner's death.
“We only found out much later – via a Freedom of Information request while campaigning with other sub-postmasters that the case against her was withdrawn but the Post Office did not have the decency – nor inclination – to inform us," he said.
The cricket-loving father-of-two who threw himself in front of a bus
Martin Griffiths
Post Office: Great Sutton in Cheshire
Martin Griffiths and his wife Gina bought the Hope Farm Road Post Office in Great Sutton in 1995 and unexplained shortfalls started appearing many years later, in 2009. By 2013 a £57,000 black hole had appeared in the accounts — the same year two armed robbers wearing balaclavas happened to attack his branch, smashing his hand with a crowbar and stealing £54,000 from the safe.
He and his wife Gina poured their life savings into balancing the books after an eventual shortfall of £61,000 (the family paid more than £100,000 to the Post Office in total), but the Post Office showed little sympathy, sacking him two months later on the basis that he had failed to manage his accounts or the branch's security properly. They even said he was culpable for some of the stolen cash.
He’s a proud man and I think he thought he was letting us all down; his children, his parents, me
Griffiths took his own life later that year, throwing himself in front of a bus at the age of 58 after leaving a note apologising to his family and telling them he loved them. "They hounded him. They persecuted him. Didn’t seem to be any end to it at the time," Gina later told Panorama of her husband, who was "a very good sportsman" and "loved cricket". "He’s a proud man and I think he thought he was letting us all down; his children, his parents, me. To turn the machine off in the morning, and the worst, the worst thing for me was seeing my children. They had to see their dad die and it was purely down to the Post Office. Nobody else. So I blame them."
Griffiths' sister, Jayne Caveen, agrees, saying a “bloody faulty computer system killed my brother”. His son Matthew has also said he "100 per cent" blames the Post Office for his father's suicide. "The Post Office was constantly chasing my dad and hounded him for money," he told the BBC in 2022. "He became a shadow of his former self. He just had no sort of passion to do anything. I couldn't even recognise him by the end. He drove to work on this normal route, pulled over into a layby and waited for a bus to come past and stepped out in front of it."
Griffiths spent three weeks in an induced coma after the incident, before the doctors recommended turning off the life support machine.
The ex-county councillor who spent his 60th birthday behind bars
Noel Thomas
Post Office: Gaerwan, Wales
"It's been 18 years for me and it's been hell for a lot of people," Noel Thomas, 77, a wrongly-jailed former sub-postmaster from Wales, said this week as the ITV drama finally brought his and his colleagues' stories to full public attention.
The former county councillor spent his 60th birthday behind bars after auditors reported a shortfall of £48,000 at his Post Office branch. Thomas pleaded guilty to false accounting and was sentenced to nine months in prison in 2006.
His conviction was quashed in 2021 and he has received interim compensation, but that did nothing to heal the trauma. "They made me bankrupt and I had nothing," he said later.
When I came home from prison, I didn’t like having the bedroom door shut... Even now I don’t like being shut up in the house or to be in one room too long
"When I came home [from prison] I didn’t like having the bedroom door shut. I have to get out and go for walks as much as possible. Even now I don’t like being shut up in the house or to be in one room too long."
Actor Ifan Huw Dafydd, who plays Thomas in the ITV series, has described him as a hero who "through everything, came through with a smile on his face". "Noel's story goes far beyond the parameters of the script," he said this week. "He lost his business — not just the post office but also his shop. He was a county councillor and had lost that job too."
The disabled mother who ended up on suicide watch in the same prison as Rose West
Janet Skinner
Post Office: Bransholme, Hull
Child killers including Rose West, the serial killer wife of notorious murderer Fred West. This was the sort of criminal that Janet Skinner, 52, was forced to rub shoulders with in a drug-infested jail after being wrongly accused of stealing £60,000 from her post office in Hull. The then-35-year-old mother-of-two lost her home and was handed nine-month jail sentence after her lawyer Karl Turner, now a Labour MP in Hull, reportedly advised her to plead guilty to avoid jailtime. "It was against everything I knew was true, but I followed the advice. That was a terrible mistake," she has said since. Skinner served three months in New Hall prison in Wakefield, one of Britain's toughest jails, before being released on an electronic tag, but says the whole saga ruined her life.
There were women in there for violent crimes, for life. Drugs were rife. They could get their hands on anything they wanted
"I was on suicide watch for a couple of weeks. I’d lost everything," she says of her time in prison, the beginning of which she is unable to recall because she was in shock. "There were women in there for violent crimes, for life. Drugs were rife. They could get their hands on anything they wanted."
She became temporarily estranged from her daughter Toni, 17, and son Matthew, 14, while she was in jail, and was later moved to another's women's prison, Drake Hall, in Staffordshire. She was released in April 2007 and given a 6pm to 7am curfew, but found herself back in the dock less than a year later after failing to repay "proceeds of crime".
The charges were eventually set aside but Skinner was left with no money, no home and no income. Amid the stress of the legal battle, she also suffered a neurological collapse and was left paralysed from the neck down, having to learn how to walk again and still left unable to work. Skinner says she believes her disability was brought on by the stress of her ordeal.
The Midlands sub-postmistress who self-harmed and had to turn to electric shock therapy
Saman (Sam) Kaur
Post Office: Aldridge, West Midlands
Whenever Saman Kaur walks past a Post Office, she feels sick. "Even until today I’m still on a lot of medication. I might not look like I’m ill to a lot of people, but I’m suffering very badly with PTSD," the Midlands-based sub-postmistress has said in the years since being accused of stealing from her employer in 2009.
The case dragged on for three years, during which time she suffered a mental breakdown and tried to end her life, having to undergo electric shock therapy in hospital when other anti-depression treatments failed to work.
Even until today I’m still on a lot of medication. I might not look like I’m ill to a lot of people, but I’m suffering very badly with PTSD
In ITV's new drama, her character, played by Hollyoaks actress Krupa Pattani, is shown inflicting self-harm in a bid to commit suicide.
She was eventually cleared of all wrongdoing and joined Bates' campaign alongside her husband, Jasgun Singh, but says the mental torture will always stay with her.
The Yorkshire pub owner who got 'tarred' overnight
🗣️ "We'd killed the village. The post office was gone and it was my fault."
— Greatest Hits Radio York & North Yorkshire (@GHRYork) April 23, 2021
📹 WATCH: Former #Catterick subpostmaster Tim Burgess tells @SeBCheer about being convicted of false accounting, and having his name cleared today ⬇️
Read more: https://t.co/Q9TYAuizzV pic.twitter.com/19W3Z8xC4G
Timothy Burgess
Post Office: Catterick, North Yorkshire
Being told he "killed the village". This was one of the worst accusations Timothy Burgess found being hurled at him by locals in his Yorkshire village of Catterick, where he'd run the post office since 2006.
He remembers noticing the shortfalls on the first day the IT system was installed and was later branded as “inept” by prosecutors, who accused him of being responsible for a deficit of cash and other items such as stamps totalling more than £7,500. They claimed he was unable to cope with the demands of the role because he also ran a local café and pub.
Burgess admitted false accounting and was convicted in 2011, ordered to pay £500 in court costs and complete 150 hours of unpaid work. “Your dishonesty was not taking money, but covering up your incompetence to the Post Office," the judge told him at the time.
People ignored me, crossed the street. People were hostile. I ‘killed the village’ – I had that levelled at me
Burgess had his conviction overturned years later, in 2021, but says the conviction took a social toll. “I got tarred overnight,” he later told an inquiry. “People ignored me, crossed the street. People were hostile. I ‘killed the village’ – I had that levelled at me.”
His relationship with his daughter also "deteriorated quite a bit". She reportedly moved to a school 30 miles away, but this was “not far enough” to avoid the repercussions of her father's conviction scandal.
His sister-in-law also reportedly lost out on buying the village pet store — something she had “had her heart set on” — because of her connections with Burgess.
The troubled divorcee driven to alcoholism and suspected suicide
Devon postmaster Peter Huxham, 63, died in a suspected suicide after he was jailed for eight months over a £16,000 shortfall.
— Tom Witherow (@TomWitherow) December 28, 2021
It led to the break-up of his 22-year marriage and drove him to alcoholism and depression. pic.twitter.com/iWvwFBXh3i
Peter Huxham
Post Office: Starcross, Devon
Peter Huxham — a popular post office owner from the village of Starcross on the banks of the river Exe — was reportedly so lonely by the time of his death in July 2020 that his body was not found until weeks later, meaning it was so decomposed that the cause of his death could not be confirmed.
He was, however, known to be suffering from alcohol problems and mental health issues after his 22-year marriage collapsed in the wake of the Post Office scandal, which saw him blaming his wife for taking the "missing" cash from his post office as she was the only person with access to his till.
He went onto be sentenced to eight months in jail for the theft in 2010, following a £16,000 shortfall. His family said the imprisonment drove him to alcoholism and his death has been treated as a suspected suicide.
Dad hadn’t stolen anything but he believed them too and unfortunately he pointed the finger at Mum and us... We all thought there was money missing and only someone with access to it could have taken it
"Dad hadn’t stolen anything but he believed them too and unfortunately he pointed the finger at Mum and us," his son Luke Huxham, 34, a data scientist, has since said. "We all thought there was money missing and only someone with access to it could have taken it. You have to learn to live with the most awful guilt.”
His widow Jacqui Huxham has sought permission from the Criminal Case Review Commission (CCRC), which deals with miscarriages of justice, for the case to go back before the crown court, but has described the process as “excruciatingly slow”.
