In Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, the ITV drama that introduced the scandalous treatment of sub-postmasters to a mass audience, Toby Jones portrayed its eponymous hero as stubborn, acerbic and indefatigable.
Appearing at the public inquiry that would not be happening without him, the real-life Alan Bates was all these and more.
Having waited almost two decades for the opportunity, he set out the case against the Post Office with the moral authority of a man who has spent three times as long campaigning for justice as he did as a sub-postmaster in Llandudno, Wales.
That, he said, “was down to the Post Office, not me”, winning the first of several laughs from a room occupied by banks of lawyers, the current Post Office chief executive Nick Read, and dozens of sub-postmasters who also suffered at its hand.
As Mr Bates pointed out, many suffered far more than him, facing criminal convictions, imprisonment, bankruptcy and the demolition of their reputations.
He was sacked for a shortfall of a relatively paltry £1,100, which he refused to repay on the grounds that it was not his fault but that of the blighted Horizon computer system.
Rather than take him on, the Post Office terminated his contract, in part, the inquiry heard, because he had become “unmanageable” – and that might have been the end of it.
“At one stage I did offer, if you’re not happy with the way we are offering your services, to let them pay me what we invested and give it [the branch] back,” he said.
“I would have been quite happy for them to do that and I probably wouldn’t be here if that had happened.”
How…
