Thought For The Day – Wednesday 19^th June 2024

At the weekend, Alan Bates was knighted for “services to Justice”.

Though his very inspiring work was dramatized in an outstanding ITV drama earlier this year, “Mr. Bates versus The Post Office”, with Alan Bates being superbly played by Toby Jones,  Alan Bates’ very deep, quiet but persistent sense of commitment, aspiration, respect, integrity and community has occurred for decades.

Alan Bates, born in Liverpool, was a former sub-postmaster in Llandudno, Wales from March 1998 until November 2003. He became the founder of and campaigner for the “Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance”(JFSA) in the Post Office scandal in the U.K.

The “Post Office Scandal” occurred between 1999 and 2015. More than 700 branch owner-operators or sub-postmasters or sub-postmistresses across the U.K.  were wrongly prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting.  Many of those pursued were told to plead guilty to crimes or face jail.  They were forced to pay the Post Office money it claimed had gone missing. Many lost their jobs, homes and lifesavings. Some went to prison. Many were financially ruined. Some died then, others have died since.

But these wonderful people  had done nothing wrong.  The problem was caused by a new computer accounting system the Post Office management had introduced called “Horizon” but, not for the first time in history, it took the very victims of injustice, over a long period of time, to point out the very injustice they were suffering.  So, led by Alan Bates, these employees fought back and stood for truth and justice. In 2019 they won a High Court case that found “bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon system caused discrepancies in postmasters’ branch accounts”.

The Post Office Scandal has been called the most widespread miscarriage of justice in U.K. legal  history.

We pay tribute to the many everyday workers for the Post Office, including at the wonderful branch in Bishop’s Stortford, who provide such an essential and a great, kind and professional service to so many in the community.

As this “Sky News” report from Saturday shows, Alan Bates, his wife and all who campaigned are  humble heroes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxttnzEwWQM

The trailer for “Mr. Bates Versus The Post Office”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPkvYXufpAY