MR BATES VS THE POST OFFICE - mon to thur ITV 9pm - tv pace no spoilers

[Blondeshavemorefun]

Mon to thur

Mr Bates vs The Post Office is an ITV drama based on a true story of injustice starring Toby Jones, Julie Hesmondhalgh, WIll Mellor and Monica Dolan.
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Mr Bates vs The Post Office is a hard-hitting ITV1 drama starring Toby Jones, Monica Dolan and Julie Hesmondhalgh among others.

The series details one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British legal history, where thousands of Post Office sub postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a defective IT system.

Mr Bates vs The Post Office follows Alan Bates (Toby Jones), a sub postmaster who decided to fight back against a scandalous miscarriage of justice.

He was one of thousands of sub postmasters and postmistresses who between 2000 and 2013 were falsely accused of theft due to financial discrepancies thrown up by the flawed Horizon computerised accounting system.

More than 700 were prosecuted and several went to prison while others lost their homes and life savings trying to pay back the money the Post Office claimed was missing.

Many were unfairly ostracised from their communities, who believed they were criminals.

In 2009 Alan Bates decided to form the Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance (https://www.jfsa.org.uk/), uniting thousands of his colleagues to
fight to clear their names.

I think it was I’ve seen exactly the same clip of him with the direct questioning and taking no shit and her squirming

It reminds me of the prisoner compensation scheme.

If someone is wrongly imprisoned they get compensation (good!) - but until recently they then had to pay a portion of it back to the prison service to cover the cost of their food and board while in prison. What the stupid hell was that about?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/aug/06/wrongly-convicted-in-britain-no-longer-forced-to-pay-saved-living-costs-in-prison#:~:text=4%20months%20old-,Wrongly%20convicted%20in%20Britain%20no%20longer%20forced%20to,saved%20living%20costs'%20in%20prison&text=People%20who%20have%20been%20wrongly,the%20case%20of%20Andrew%20Malkinson.

This poor ladies story made me cry.. www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/mr-bates-vs-post-office-9011700

So many lives shattered.

@Awwlookatmybabyspider , Paula Vennells doesn't have an OBE, she has a CBE
It goes
Ordinary Bloody Effort
Moderate Bloody Effort
Colossal Bloody Effort

The more I watch this the angrier , sadder and more incredulous I become .

The factual programme after the news, following after episode four, should be interesting.
Last night it was saying that Paula Vennells should hand back her CBE, she shouldn’t be given the choice!
I’m glad ITV are drawing wide public attention to this, it was dreadful at the time, a local village postoffice was involved. The BBC seem to be very quiet about it.

@Darklane The BBC seem to be very quiet about it.
Yes if you completely ignore the numerous news reports over several years, the Panorama programme and the Radio 4 series, which still gets added to as this shameful mess slowly progresses. It is great that ITV have brought this to the attention of a wider public but the BBC and Channel 4 have highlighted it on many occasions - just not with famous faces in a drama series.

The only reason I know of this was through the BBC there’s been numerous tv and radio about on the BBC
i can remember watching the panorama programme about it and a tv clip where Paula was grilled by the enquiry

let’s be honest itv haven’t done this out of public interest have they

Or 'Corrupt Bloody Effort' in Paula's case.

To be fair, I've read about this off and on for the last few years - and almost exclusively on the BBC News website. So the BBC have been covering it but they have been primarily doing so (at least in my recollection) during one of the most turbulent times I can remember: pandemic, political upheavals etc. That's meant there is always competition for the news space.

I'm glad ITV have made a drama that adds more of the human experience to the facts and allows us all to see and empathise with how it felt for the victims going through this.

I first read about the case in Private Eye, years ago; they were drawing on Computer Weekly's coverage.

Interesting shown on itv and not bbc

To those who say they hadn't heard of this until recently, it has been widely covered so you must not read much investigative journalism. It is scandalous that it was first reported in a niche publication (Computer Weekly) and not immediately picked up by the wider mainstream press. But it was a complicated story at first - technical IT issues and none of the black and white evidence that the red tops need to hold the attention of their intellectually-challenged readers.

Given the class system that runs through the honours system generally the higher the honour the less likely it is to be remarkable (top honours go to those doing their job like Justin Welby getting a Grand Cross for doing his job and crowning the king). Whereas OBEs and BEMs go to people doing charity work outside of their day jobs. So Paula Venells got a CBE for doing her job (badly) and Alan Bates was offered an OBE for his (unpaid hard work bringing the PO to justice. SO the system should be

OBE - Outstanding Bloody Effort
MBE Moderate Bloody Effort
CBE - Cronies Bestow Everything (or Casual (non) Bloody Effort

Also
Other Buggers Efforts

I knew someone personally who was affected by this
He used his life savings and inheritance to make up the shortfall - when that wasn’t enough he sold the business and the premises which included a flat rented out - managed to keep some of it luckily which was needed as he was never able to work again as he suffered from such severe depression - he eventually died quite young from heavy drinking
His wife became his carer which impacted on her health - she again died quite young from a stroke which I believe was related to the stress of the previous years
Their children would now be in their late 30s or early 40s and I have no idea where they are as they moved hundreds of miles away to live with a family member when they were orphaned
I frequently wonder if they as adults know anything of this and are entitled to any kind of compensation

I can't believe only one fujitsu employee dared to come forward.
They are as bad as the PO.

Just about to write the same

Shameful !!!

It is an absolute disgrace that Paula Vennells was awarded a CBE for her services to the post office. What an insult to all those poor people whose lives have been ruined by her.

I hope those affected will finally get some sort of compensation now the public inquiry is due to start.

@JaceLancs thats another heart wrenching story. So many lives impacted horrifically.

Fujitsu still have the contract so it's not that surprising their people are afraid to speak up, but it is cowardly of them not to come forward in the face of so much suffering. I assume fujitsu must have some very scary tactics to stop them.

My dad was one of the original 555 claimants. He lived just long enough to see the verdict and it brought him a great deal of vindication. We were nowhere near as badly affected as so many other people, but I still find it a total disgrace that no one has been held to account at the Post Office

£58 million done to £12 million by the time costs /fees etc had been paid

What ever happened to that Angela woman?

If they won the case, why didnt the PO give them their money back immediately, as well as the compensation?
Compensation is for loss, suffering, inconvenience, but the post office took hard cash off them. They stole it from them at the end of the day...
Presumably the above is still ongoing?.. and if the government is the major shareholder, THEY need to give them the money back, is that the long and short of it?

What happened to the accounts of the post masters who took over the Post Offices from the accused? Did they have subsequent issues with Horizon if using the same terminal? What was the purpose/motive of Fujitsu or the PO to tamper with the accounts?