Post Office scandal: The victim, the journalist and the politician on what should happen next
This Is Why
Sky News
4.0 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2024
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Many lost jobs, homes, faced court battles and some took their own lives. So far, fewer than 100 have had their convictions quashed. In 2023 an independent inquiry began, and the Horizon scandal story has been serialized in a TV drama on ITV, boosting renewed interest in their fight for justice.
On the Sky New Daily, host Jonathan Samuels hears from three people who were portrayed in the ITV drama 'Mr Bates vs The Post Office', including former sub-postmaster Lee Castleton who had - within a year of owning his east Yorkshire post office - a computer system which showed around £25,000 in discrepancies. He was made to repay the money and pay costs of £321,000, which ended up bankrupting him.
Jonathan also speaks to Lord James Arbuthnot, who has supported victims of the Horizon scandal in seeking justice, and journalist Rebecca Thomson who first reported on the scandal in 2009 writing for Computer Weekly magazine.
Senior podcast producer: Annie Joyce
Podcast producer: Soila Apparicio
Promotions producer: David Chipakupaku
Editor: Paul Stanworth
Transcript
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| 0:30.1 | You know, when Helen used to get home from work, I'd ask, how are you? |
| 0:34.4 | Fine, she'd say. She clearly wasn't. |
| 0:42.3 | After 10 years in IT, she was on autopilot. Then she found this job, training up-and-coming tech wizas at the college, same skills but with new people, new challenges. |
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| 1:00.3 | No, I don't know about you, but TV over the Christmas break really didn't seem to be what it once was. |
| 1:06.8 | Like in the days when I used to highlight dozens of shows in the Radio Times and set the video recorder. |
| 1:12.8 | There was a decent bit of excitement in EastEnders, wasn't there, and the Barry Humphrey's documentary, I thought, was excellent. |
| 1:18.8 | But for me, there was really just one drama which stood out. |
| 1:23.0 | And it was a show which could well do something quite rare, and that's bring about actual change. It was |
| 1:29.9 | ITV's Mr Bates versus the Post Office. Jonathan Samuels here with the Sky News Daily. |
| 1:40.8 | Mr Bates is Alan Bates, one of the sub-postmasters who campaigned tirelessly after what became known as the Horizon scandal. |
| 1:50.5 | Now, that saw more than 700 post office branch managers convicted of false accounting, of theft, fraud as well, all because of the faulty horizon computer software. Now, thousands |
| 2:03.6 | of people were wrongly accused. Some went to prison, many paid out thousands of pounds to |
| 2:08.7 | cover non-existent shortfalls. It's been going on for years now, but this drama has given |
| 2:15.0 | it new prominence, and it's brought the story to the attention of millions |
... |
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