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.

Yes it does, sadly. 4 took their own lives

We watched the first 3 episodes on itvx thus afternoon. It is very good. 35 years ago we considered taking on a sub post office, as it suited both me and DHs past jobs, one in retail, one in banking. As we watched it we bith felt we had dodged a bullet deciding not to go down that route. It us a disgrace that the people in the post office behind the way they treated the victims have not been prosecuted. They destroyed so many lives. Maybe this programme with bring it to public awareness and force the issue.

Paula Vennells - the Post Office CEO at the time - went on to become an Anglican priest.

The fucking nerve of her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells

Am watching this is just shocking …

You are fucking kidding me!!

Sorry I don't usually swear on here but I have only watched 10 minutes of this so far and am already raging.

Dear God, I can't even begin to imagine what these poor people went through and are STILL fighting for compensation. (As if money could make up for ruined livelihoods and suicides!)

That bitch should be serving life without parole never mind declaring religion. 🤬🤬🤬🤬

A priest Shes a fucking priest

She should be in prison! Was she prosecuted? This beggars belief

So what computer system are they currently using?

"no one else is having these problems"

YOU FUCKING LYING GASLIGHTERS

I remember a postmistress here getting sacked because she had stolen money. I'm now wondering if it was due to this.

Same. Village postmaster went to prison, lost home , business, wife left him.
An absolute disgrace.

Omg it's giving me knots in my stomach to watch. These poor people.

Still Fujitsu’s Horizon System, they were awarded another £42 million pound deal in 2021.

Omg it's giving me knots in my stomach to watch. These poor people.

Me too, literally my stomach's in knots. I feel sick for them.

Bloody hell @Lucieinthesky07 thats disgusting. Im surprised anyone wants to still do the job.

There's an excellent radio series which is more documentary and very well done.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000jf7j?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Omg shocking .
Heads should roll for this . It's still not resolved .

This case has horrified me for so long. These poor people and even today the Post Office are dragging their feet settling. I don't recall Fujitsu making any apology either. Sorry for the language but it's a fucking outrage. The govt should take a hold to force the Post Office and Fujitsu to recompense these poor families now.

I'm fascinated by this case. We used to live bang opposite our village post office. The lady who ran it was about my age and we were quite friendly. The PO was in the converted front room of her dad's house and she travelled in from town every day. . Then one day in about 2002 she didn't open. Lots of rumours, and disbelief, around the village about the post office accounts not balancing by £10Ks. Her dad was forced to sell up and move away before long.

When the news about Horizon broke, 20 years later, I thought right back to our PO and post mistress immediately. Our old PO wasn't on the list of POs affected that was published a year or two ago, but with the caveat that these were only the cases they were aware of.

Paula Vennells walked away from this appalling scandal with over £400,000 in pay and bonuses too.

According to Mr.Bates:

“The payments to Vennells are inhumane in a way. She has put hundreds, if not thousands, of people through absolute hell through her incompetence running the Post Office for years.”

That was a great start

Paula Vennells' Wikipedia page says she resigned from being a priest and director, under pressure, after 39 convictions were quashed. 'Under pressure' - no integrity there then.

I have spent the last 15 minutes sobbing!

I REALLY hope you are on this site Paula Vennells along with your fucking cohorts.

May you burn in HELL!

Really good. Love Toby Jones anyway. I know ITV didn't have to come up with the story, but the dramatisation is really good, just showing the post officer workers as the ordinary folk they were, who had no chance of fighting the behemoth of the Post Office.

Is anyone who worked for the Horizon helpline reading this and care to comment?