Sir Alan Bates has told prime minister Keir Starmer that if government is not capable of completing financial redress for victims of the Post Office scandal by March next year, it should appoint an independent organisation to do the job, or face court action.
In a circular to members of the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA), Bates wrote that he had written to Starmer demanding he set a deadline for financial redress for JFSA claimants to be completed by March 2025, or appoint an organisation that is capable of doing so.
Bates also said court action is an option for JFSA members, with discussions with law firms planned and financial backing from the public likely.
In the email update, Bates told JFSA members: “On the 2nd of October, I wrote to the Prime Minister asking that he instruct department of business and trade (DBT) to completely finish all the GLO claims by March 2025, and if the DBT were not capable of undertaking the work in order to meet that deadline, then an external person or company should be brought in to finish the job.”
He also wrote that the JFSA could take further legal action, with its ability to raise the necessary funds not in doubt.
“We need that guarantee, not excuses, otherwise, as I have often alluded to, we will have to go back to the courts, and I will be meeting with new law firms to discuss ways we can move the issue back to the courts,” said Bates. “But the difference now is that we have the support of the nation behind us, and have no doubt at all that when the time comes, we will be able to crowdfund whatever funding we will need.”
Bates has also written to Liam Byrne MP, chair of the business department select committee, to ask for support for the March 2025 deadline.
Long wait goes on
Is a deadline too much to ask? The previous deadline of August 2024 has passed, and since Bates began having problems in his North Wales Post Office branch in 2003, there have been eight prime ministers and six general elections in the UK.
It’s the JFSA that has done a huge public service exposing the scandal. Its members brought a High Court action against the Post Office that culminated in trials in 2018 and 2019, and victory for the JFSA.
In those trials they proved the Horizon computer system used in thousands of branches caused unexplained shortfalls that subpostmasters were blamed for. Starmer is the fifth prime minister in the time since then and now, and in this time the government has managed to spend billions on the response to the Covid-19 pandemic – much of which was wasted – but subpostmasters still wait.
The JFSA has dragged the government kicking and screaming at every point in the campaign for justice, and has been central to exposing the Post Office scandal, arguably the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history. It’s the JFSA that proved miscarriages of justice and forced a statutory public inquiry, which has run for over two years.
But it’s only since ITV’s dramatisation of the scandal, in January this year, that the government has acted with vigour. It managed to legislate to overturn wrongful convictions in a matter of weeks of the drama, despite campaigners calling for it for over a decade. This was stark evidence that the government can act quickly when public pressure is applied, but final financial redress for JFSA members seems a step too far for the government.
The Post Office scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to Horizon accounting software, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history (see below timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal since 2009).
• Also read: What you need to know about the Horizon scandal •
• Also watch: ITV’s documentary – Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The real story •
• Also read: Post Office and Fujitsu malevolence and incompetence means huge taxpayers’ bill •