Campaigner Alan Bates accuses government of ‘vindictiveness’ in treatment of Post Office victims

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The lead campaigner in the UK Post Office Horizon scandal has accused the government of treating victims with “vindictiveness”, as he criticised officials for deterring ministers from engaging with sub-postmasters.

In his testimony to the public inquiry into the affair, which resumed on Tuesday, former sub-postmaster Alan Bates said: “I hold the officials far more guilty in all of this than politicians.”

“They [civil servants and Post Office] were briefing them [ministers] in the direction they wanted to brief them in, not what was for the benefit of the group or the individual here,” he added.

Bates was referring to advice officials gave to members of the government that he said had led to delays in sub-postmasters seeing justice in the decades-long saga.

He also noted his application for redress had resulted in an offer one-sixth the size of his initial claim. “I have no doubt that there’s a bit of vindictiveness coming in from the department [for business and trade] and the Post Office,” Bates said.

His comments will add pressure on senior figures involved in the affair as the inquiry turns to taking evidence from company executives, government ministers and figures from Fujitsu.

More than 900 sub-postmasters were convicted in cases involving data from Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon IT system following its introduction in 1999. Thousands more were pursued for account shortfalls.

The role of Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats and former postal affairs minister in the 2010 coalition government, has been under scrutiny since an ITV drama about the scandal in January sparked intense public interest.

In a letter from Bates to Davey dated July 2010, he accused the then-minister of hiding behind the government’s “arm’s length relationship” with the state-owned Post Office and leaving the institution to be managed by “thugs in suits”.

Davey agreed to meet Bates in October 2010 but had been briefed by officials to do so for “presentational reasons”, according to civil service briefing notes shared with the inquiry.

The documents showed officials advised Davey to “avoid [making] any commitment” to the objectives of the postmasters’ campaign group.

Bates founded the campaign group Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance in 2009 and was the named litigant in a successful lawsuit brought by 555 sub-postmasters against the Post Office.

The High Court ruled in 2019 several “bugs, errors and defects” had meant there was a “material risk” that Horizon was to blame for the faulty data used in the Post Office prosecutions.

The inquiry also heard Bates had been dismissed as a sub-postmaster by the Post Office in 2003 after he became “unmanageable”, according to an internal memo.

Slides written by a former Post Office managing director noted: “Bates had discrepancies but was dismissed because he became unmanageable. Clearly struggled with the accounting and despite copious support did not follow instructions.”

Bates told the inquiry: “They [the Post Office] didn’t like me standing up to them, they were finding it awkward.” He argued the government-owned company was “determined to protect the brand at any cost”.

“They didn’t want anything coming out or being disclosed that might cause damage to the Post Office,” he added.

The inquiry also heard Bates wrote in 2003 to Allan Leighton, former chair of the Post Office’s parent company Royal Mail between 2002 and 2009, to raise concerns over accounting shortfalls.

In a response, the Post Office informed Bates at the time there was nothing “inherently wrong” with Horizon.

He said: “The Post Office was always in the right and you were always in the wrong. It just seemed to be their nature.”

Leighton will give evidence next week, while other senior figures, including former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells, are scheduled to appear in the coming months.

Davey will appear in July as will officials from UKGI, the state-owned body responsible for managing the government’s ownership of the Post Office.