The true crime drama about the UK post office which caused a national scandal

It’s a scandal almost a quarter of a century in the making, described as “Britain’s worst miscarriage of justice” by The Economist.

It has ignited a political firestorm, tarnished the reputation of one of the UK’s most cherished institutions and galvanised a nation. It has been splashed across the front pages of tabloids and sober broadsheets alike for weeks.

An overwhelming public outcry forced Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to announce emergency legislation that will overrule the courts, quash hundreds of criminal convictions and compensate victims with payments of up to £600,000 ($1.2 million) each. Fresh revelations are still coming to light and an ongoing public inquiry is due to conclude later this year.

One extraordinary aspect of this saga is that it had effectively been hiding in plain sight until a four-part miniseries, titled Mr Bates vs The Post Office, debuted in the UK on New Year’s Day. It dramatises the true story of almost 1000 subpostmasters (the people who run local post office branches, including those outside of England) wrongly convicted of fraud, false accounting and theft.

Many lost their livelihoods and homes, spiralling into depression and ill health after being forced to “repay” money they never stole. More than 230 were jailed, including one pregnant woman, and at least four took their own lives.

These tragedies can be traced back to Horizon, a faulty accounting system operated by Fujitsu, that showed phantom financial shortfalls in branches throughout the UK. Instead of believing its own employees, the Post Office’s management proffered an astonishing explanation: that hundreds of subpostmasters (whose duties include renewing locals’ pet insurance and helping pensioners pay their bills) were essentially crooks disguised in cardigans and sensible footwear.

Many were interrogated by internal investigators who threatened imprisonment to coerce them into pleading guilty or admitting to lesser charges.

Hours before Mr Bates vs The Post Office premiered, executive producer Patrick Spence emailed his team, urging them not to be disheartened when their series, broadcast in Britain over four consecutive nights on commercial network ITV, would be thumped by strong competition in the overnight ratings. He assured them it would slowly find an audience on ITV’s catch-up service.

Toby Jones and Julie Hesmondhalgh play former subposter Alan Bates and his partner, Suzanne Sercombe.Credit: Seven/ITV

Spence was wrong. Not only did Mr Bates win its timeslot; by early February it averaged 13.5 million viewers and its numbers are still climbing, placing it among the UK’s top-rating dramas over the past 15 years. It’s an astounding result for a story British media had already covered, placing special focus on the 2019 High Court battle involving 555 claimants who received a total settlement of £58 million ($112 million).

Most of this money was chewed up by legal fees and to date, only 93 subpostmasters have had their convictions overturned. Those who have already received compensation or reached a settlement with the Post Office will now be eligible for further payouts.

The title of the series is a catchier version of the court case Bates & Others v Post Office Ltd. At the heart of this case is Alan Bates, an unassuming subpostmaster who began reporting problems with Horizon shortly after it was rolled out in 1999. When he refused to repay his branch’s alleged shortfalls, his contract was terminated and he and his partner, Suzanne Sercombe, lost the £65,000 ($125,000) they had invested in the business.

With Sercombe’s support, Bates spent years tracking down others who had been wrongfully accused, eventually forming the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance that secured the High Court win. He never stopped campaigning and is now pushing the government to swiftly enact its promises.

That so many UK citizens were only vaguely aware of this injustice before Mr Bates aired is partly due to the Post Office’s once-cuddly reputation, bolstered by its famous red pillar boxes and the beloved children’s TV series Postman Pat. It involves a software accounting program and an organisation that delivers mail; at first glance, a deeply unsexy tale. And most people assume an innocent person would never admit to crimes they didn’t commit.

A national uproar ensued after Mr Bates vs The Post Office dramatised the victims’ stories.Credit: Seven/ITV

This is why Spence decided to make a drama rather than a documentary.

“When you dramatise a story about people whose home lives and business lives are destroyed, it brings to life the pain and suffering these hundreds of people went through so our audience could properly feel the full horror of it,” Spence says. “A documentary can’t touch the sides of that pain and suffering. It can only describe it retrospectively.”

He never considered offering the series to a subscription streaming service.

“To streamers, it’s a very British story about very ordinary people and its potential appeal internationally, until now, would’ve seemed minimal,” Spence says. “ITV was our first choice … it made a country gather around a story and a group of people and get angry on their behalf. Streamers can’t do that. Only broadcast television can.”

When I mention how the Post Office “apparently” lied to cover its tracks, Spence corrects me.

“They were lying,” he says, referring to damning evidence that emerged both before and after Mr Bates aired. “That’s a fact … they understood that the computer system on which they were basing this was flawed.”

After the second episode screened, current Post Office CEO Nick Read apologised for “the devastating impact [on] the lives of so many; we are all doing all we can to provide redress.”

‘This drama tapped into a national rage about feeling unheard by politicians and the people who run our companies.’

Executive producer Patrick Spence

A fortnight later, Paul Patterson, co-CEO of Fujitsu Europe, admitted, “We were involved from the very start. We did have bugs and errors in the system and we did help the Post Office in their prosecutions of the subpostmasters. For that we are truly sorry.”

Spence’s team spent three years researching the scandal. Co-executive producer Joe Williams, for instance, sifted through thousands of documents and videos, giving writer Gwyneth Hughes a whopping 120,000-word synthesis.

Hughes also spent considerable time with the victims, as did the cast members who portray them. Actor Monica Dolan even asked former subpostmaster Jo Hamilton to audio-record her life story. Dolan listened to it repeatedly, allowing her to perfect Hamilton’s rhythm and cadence.

Monica Dolan plays former subpostmaster Jo Hamilton, wrongly accused of stealing £36,000. Under intense pressure, Hamilton pleaded guilty to false accounting to avoid a prison sentence.Credit: Seven/ITV

Spence says that Bates, played by Toby Jones, was involved extensively but insisted to the writers, “You are applying emotions to me that don’t exist. I am not an angry man.”

“Each character was told every beat of their story so they could respond in terms of how accurate it felt,” Spence says. “Toby is magnificent in that he doesn’t get to have emotional outbursts and yet you still feel you’re watching somebody who has been to hell and back. These are ordinary people; they really need to feel like we have honoured who they were.”

Paula Vennells, the Post Office’s CEO from 2012 to 2019, had little interest in meeting the writers. Every line of her dialogue is taken from public statements and unearthed emails. While working as CEO, Vennells also practised part-time as an Anglican priest, presumably preaching the virtues of truth and compassion: a galling detail for her tormented subpostmasters. She stepped back from active ministry in 2021.

Shaun Dooley (left) portrays former subpostmaster and union representative Michael Rudkin, who accidentally discovered the central fault with Horizon while visiting Fujitsu’s headquarters.Credit: Seven/ITV

Less than a week after Mr Bates finished airing, a petition demanding Vennells be stripped of her CBE exceeded 1.2 million signatures before she agreed to hand it back, although only King Charles can make the final judgment on removing an honour.

Spence emphasises that his team’s first duty was to properly acknowledge the subpostmasters’ suffering.

“We weren’t aiming for this but it appears this drama tapped into a national rage about feeling unheard by politicians and the people who run our companies,” he says, appalled but unsurprised when I inform him of Australia’s robo-debt disaster. “I’m talking to people in lots of different countries and they’re all saying, ‘We feel the same way’.”

But the public’s response to Mr Bates makes Spence even more proud to be British.

“The [other] heroes of this are the inhabitants of the United Kingdom who rose up against their government and the Post Office as a result of hearing this story,” he says, noting the government could have acted in 2019 after the High Court ruled Horizon contained numerous “bugs, errors and defects” with a “material risk” that shortfalls were caused by the system.

“We have shown that we’re not the people who lead us and we’re really angry with them,” he adds. “We are better than the bullies, liars and cheats who sit atop some of our biggest institutions … the country has responded and said, ‘Not on our watch’.”

Mr Bates vs The Post Office airs on Seven, Wednesday, February 14 and 21 at 8.55pm.