Post Office scandal TV drama 'like a dream' say victims

For the unassuming former sub-postmaster who was instrumental in exposing one of the biggest miscarriages of justice the UK has ever seen, seeing his life portrayed on the screen in a prime time national TV drama feels "a bit strange".

Alan Bates had no desire to find himself in the limelight when he began, then drove the campaign to expose the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

But his remarkable tale is at the centre of Mr Bates vs the Post Office: The Real Story, a four-part mini-series which begins tonight on ITV.

It focuses on the epic legal battle he led and won, paving the way for dozens of convictions to be overturned.

"I didn't start all this with the aim of that... I was just one of many involved in this but I suppose they do need a central character," says Mr Bates.

The award-winning actor, Toby Jones, plays him in the drama. He remembers when he first got in touch with Mr Bates to help him prepare for the role.

"You ring up and say, 'I would love to meet' and he says, 'I don't know why you're getting involved with me, I don't have emotions'. And I was going, 'what are you talking about, Alan?'."

Mr Jones tells the BBC that he didn't know much about the story to begin with, but as the script came through it was clear "an incredible injustice" had been done.

The drama encapsulates a 20-year struggle in four hours of TV.

"I think it's the nearest I've seen yet to demonstrating what it was like for some of the people," says Mr Bates.

His own Post Office contract was terminated in 2003 after he refused to accept liability for losses in his branch account in Llandudno. He and his wife lost the £65,000 they'd invested in the business.

Mr Bates always believed the shortfalls were down to issues with a new computer system, Horizon. But it took many years to prove it.

Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office prosecuted more than 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses - an average of almost one a week - based on information from Horizon.

Some went to prison following convictions for false accounting and theft. Many were financially ruined and have described being shunned by their communities. Some have since died.

Still campaigning, Mr Bates says he hopes the drama will increase the pressure on the government to pay full compensation to those people still waiting.

"It's gone on far too long," he says. "People have got to be held accountable. That's got to happen. And we're going to have to carry on campaigning for that to occur."

For the writer, Gwyneth Hughes, choosing to base the drama around Mr Bates was an obvious decision. "He was the motor and the engine of it throughout," she says. "He never gave up."

Reflecting on his ongoing role in the campaign, she adds: "He's been working unpaid on this enormous job for 20 years, and shows no signs of stopping."

With attention to detail and a forensic approach to his campaign, she describes Mr Bates as "the head" of the story, with Jo Hamilton, who also features prominently, as "the heart".

The former sub-postmistress was accused by the Post Office of taking £36,000 from the village shop she ran in Hampshire.

She pleaded guilty to false accounting to avoid a jail sentence but the conviction turned her life upside down.

"I had a great fellow feeling with Jo Hamilton," says Ms Hughes. "If this had happened to me, I would have been like Jo Hamilton," she adds, explaining that Ms Hamilton's reaction was that the mistake must have been hers, that she didn't understand computers and that she had done something wrong.

Seeing her story made into a drama was "like a dream", according to Ms Hamilton. Her character is played by Monica Dolan - and she says the actor has really captured her.

After exchanging emails, the pair say their first meeting was "emotional", with Ms Dolan later asking Ms Hamilton to make an audio recording of her life story so that she could prepare for the role.

"I felt quite odd asking," says Ms Dolan. "But it gave me a sense of her life, all her different experiences and the sound of her voice as well."

The actor, who won a Bafta after playing Rosemary West in the 2011 drama Appropriate Adult, said she was shocked at the things she discovered as she learnt more about the scandal, for example, that the Post Office could carry out its own criminal investigations.

"I think if the police had been involved in the investigations, many of them wouldn't have got as far as they did," she says.

After 20 years of coverage in news programmes and documentaries, Ms Hamilton and her fellow campaigners hope that this drama will reach even more people - many of whom may not be aware of the true scale of what occurred.

"We're all still in it," she says. "Hopefully this will give it the oxygen it deserves."

A public inquiry is still taking place. Many questions remain unanswered, and so far only 93 convictions have been quashed and the battle for compensation isn't over.

The government says it has already paid out £27m across the 475 claimants in the original civil case. But only 11 people have received full and final settlements. A further 10 have been accepted.

Which means for Mr Bates, the fight continues. "We can't stop now, we've got to see this through to completion," he says.

So what keeps him going, after all these years? "I think over time you meet more and more of the victims. And you just realise that you just cannot leave something like this."