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.

Absolutely! What an amazing man

I typed in one for Kendal and in 2011 the postmistress pleaded guilty but still blamed Horizon. Poor woman

Wow. Just finished e1

It's an amazing story and the fact this actually happened and kept saying you are the only one when was 39? In all

Disgraceful

And yes they all deserve to go to prison for fraud as they k ew horizon wasn't working right and blamed these ooor people

Really good drama and e2 tomorow should be good

But awful that it's based on real events

There seems to be no accountability for anything in this country

Can't you watch it online via the itvx ap?

I have been following this case for years. It's still hard to understand this could happen in the UK.

I'd like to think that these days due to social media the Postmasters would have been able to link up to discuss the issues they were having, no such support existed in the early 2000's. The whole thing is an utter disgrace.

'No one else is experiencing any issues'
Shocking

I'm on the final episode, and I am enraged by the behaviour of the Post Office and their staff.

Alan Bates is the equivalent of Erin Brockovich.

No amount of compensation will ever undo the wrongs that have been committed.

TRIGGER WARNING FOT EPISODE 3

A very violent and upsetting PO robbery scene. If you’re a bit of a wuss like me you might wanna look away.

I binge watched the lot today! I hope this very public reminder forces the government into long awaited action.

This was a really compelling watch.

Was quite scary and menacing at the beginning.

And that scene with the man in court who was representing himself. Really brought home how he stood no chance about them

And the fact that it doubled in front of her eyes

You could feel their shock and horror when they couldn't balance their books. Must have been awful. So glad they all joined forces at the meeting.

@prh47bridge - Thank you - I have signed that petition.
I am old enough that I am sure I would have remembered this at the time , but maybe a testament to how much it was kept under the radar . Any I hope Ms Vannell and various high level Fujitsu managers will be held to account. Properly held to account

Yes I think I just be the same

I was 30 when started in 2003 but honey it don't R.E.M. heating anything of this even when. Older :in news

thanks so much for the recommendation
watched this last night.
i have also heard of the case

As I mentioned above I was employed by Post Office throughout this period in a head office role but not one related to Horizon. For years the message to staff was that Horizon worked just fine and that the business was justified in its actions against those subpostmasters who defrauded the business (and by extension defrauded the public due to the public ownership of the company).

While I had relatively few dealings with Paula Vennells, I always found her to be impressive in the way she led the business - she clearly had her sights set on turning around Post Office’s poor financial position but managed to do so in a way that made the wider team feel engaged and personally valued. I was particularly grateful to Paula when she stepped into her Anglican priest role to lead a heartfelt service of remembrance for a colleague who died unexpectedly young but whose actual funeral was to be held in her home country on the other side of the world. Paula showed a deeply compassionate side to her which meant a lot to those of us affected by the loss of our colleague. It’s hard to reconcile those memories with the reality of what was being done to subpostmasters during that same time period under Paula’s leadership

Right up until 2019 (when Post Office lost in court in the Group Litigation Order brought by subpostmasters) we continued to be told that Post Office was justified in its actions. My own doubts probably only crept in when PO tried to recuse the judge presiding over that case - at that point I felt that PO was desperate to save face. Yet still the official internal message was one of justification in the name of protecting public funds.

The public inquiry is ongoing and has revealed some alarming levels of complacency in terms of Post Office’s willingness to accept that Horizon data should be taken as the single source of prosecution evidence, and a willingness to overlook those errors that might have caused discrepancies. There is no evidence that PO sought to explain why existing known errors did not cause a particular subpostmaster to misbalance, instead sticking to the narrative that Horizon was robust and, by extension, that anyone experiencing problems was the only one and so must have been at fault. Some of the witnesses to the inquiry have been shocking in the level of complacency and lack of remorse for any part they played. Others have been more reflective on what happened and what they could have done differently. There is a number of key individuals who are still to give evidence (Paula Vennells among them together with some key people from Fujitsu) and I hope that the inquiry is able to get underneath that corporate skin and uncover just what went wrong.

The real Alan Bates was on GMB this morning and Susanna Reid made reference to him turning down the OBE and yes it was a) because he said it wasn’t just about him but also b) whilst Paula Vennells still held her CBE he wouldn’t accept it because it would be a huge slap in the face to those who had been affected.

people went to prison, and some took their own lives - WHY is it still ongoing??? Sort it out!! But actually he made a valid point, the “compensation” - for some subpostmasters, they haven’t even been given back the money used to cover the losses that didn’t actually exist!!!

@GoldenMalicious they must have got swept into thinking that Horizon was just flushing out a vast amount of fraud then coupled that with an unwillingness to listen to pleads of innocent people.

It's connected to UK - Japan international relations...

I have only watched episode 1 so far, but my only criticism is that the featured sub postmasters are all middle class white. Near me, there were postmasters affected from ethnic minorities who also suffered racism on top of everything else. Hopefully they are still to come into the dramatisation. Although I did notice some at the meeting.

Yes it does. 😥

I think it was a lot more than 39.

I binged watched it last night. I sobbed my heart out. That Paula Vennels calls herself a women of God yet she watched while innocent people go to jail, lose their livelihoods and their homes and took their own lives knowing full well it was the Horizon system at fault.

I binge watched all 4 episodes and am shaken at what they went through. Let's hope the police have enough evidence against those in the Post Office and Fujitsu who covered it up, misled or committed perjury.