Alan Bates: From ‘unmanageable’ subpostmaster to subject of TV drama
Mr Bates was dismissed by the Post Office in 2003.
Alan Bates became a household name after a TV drama shone a spotlight on how he was forced to lead a campaign on behalf of subpostmasters following one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in UK history.
Mr Bates led a group of 555 subpostmasters who took the Post Office to the High Court in March 2017 following wrongful accusations of theft because of the faulty Horizon system.
The group, which formed part of the Group Litigation Order (GLO), was due to be separated into a number of trials, but it was jointly agreed that the case would be settled after two.
Before his short-lived career as a subpostmaster, Mr Bates had a 12-year stint in the heritage and leisure project management sector.
On March 31 1998, the pair took over the Craig-y-Don Post Office branch in Llandudno for £175,000 – a place Mr Bates deemed to be home to a “large community in which a branch was likely to remain an essential service”.
The Horizon system was eventually installed into his branch in October 2000 – a process he said he had “no choice but to accept and accommodate”.
Mr Bates’s problems began on December 13, as he noticed £6,000 went missing from his books – which he eventually discovered was from giro items being duplicated on the Horizon system.
He said he continued to roll through “losses” and “gains” from week to week without resetting the system as he believed that would mean he was accepting the figures produced by Horizon.
Mr Bates was told by the Post Office he had a responsibility to pay the shortfalls he was experiencing, but he refused to do so.
On August 5 2003, he received a letter from his line manager Mike Wakley which gave him “three months’ notice of termination of your contract for services”.
A presentation prepared by Post Office manager Dave Smith said he was dismissed because he was “unmanageable”.
After being notified he had been sacked, Mr Bates’s employment ceased on November 5 in the same year.
He has not held a job since his time as a subpostmaster, instead dedicating his time to his campaign for justice.
Alongside 554 other subpostmasters, Mr Bates took the Post Office to the High Court in March 2017 and two trials were held before a jointly agreed settlement was reached in 2019.
After legal costs, each affected subpostmaster was awarded only around £20,000.
Since the case, Mr Bates shot to fame following actor Toby Jones’s portrayal of him in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
The increased publicity of the scandal since the drama has given Mr Bates the platform to call for the Post Office to be “disbanded”.
He has been at the forefront of the call for all affected subpostmasters to be paid sufficient redress and turned down an OBE until all cases were resolved.
