It’s odd, because everyone thinks of the Post Office as warm and cuddly,” says one bemused reporter in ITV’s new drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office. It’s true – the red and white oval logo brings to mind Postman Pat and handwritten Christmas cards from your gran. The series, though, which dramatises one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British legal history, paints a very different image of the national institution.
Alan Bates, played by a superb, scruffy Toby Jones, is the Mr of the title – a man who has spent two decades of his life fighting for justice after hundreds of postmasters and postmistresses were accused of theft, fraud, and false accounting – all because of faulty computers. In 1999, Horizon, a defective Fujitsu IT system, began incorrectly reporting cash shortfalls at branches across the country. The accusations tore people’s lives apart, with many losing their jobs and homes. Several people took their own lives due to the stress. To this day, not a single Post Office or Fujitsu employee has been held to account over the scandal, much less faced criminal investigation. And 60 of the victims have died before finding any justice at all.
