Mr Bates vs The Post Office: Quick insight into the Horizon IT scandal
And now, in other news, in a review, The Telegraph said that ITV’s new drama, ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’ will ‘leave you seething by the sense of injustice’. With that in mind, let’s take a look at exactly what happened, that led to hundreds of post office workers being wrongfully criminally convicted. That’s next.
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00:00 The Horizon IT scandal is described as one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in UK history.
00:06 Between 1999 and 2015, more than 700 post office branch managers were wrongfully, criminally convicted for theft, fraud and false accounting,
00:15 all because of faulty accounting software installed in the late 1990s.
00:19 To date, 86 postmasters have had their wrongful convictions overturned and £21 million has been paid in compensation.
00:26 And with the premiere of ITV's four-part British drama, Mr Bates vs. the Post Office, the scandal trends once again.
00:33 The show has been referred to as a devastating tale of a national scandal by The Guardian,
00:37 many viewers have taken to X to share their outrage concerning the miscarriage of justice.
00:42 At the time, postmasters claimed that some senior post office staff knew about the system's failings.
00:48 And in more recent news, Paul Marshall, a barrister who represents post office operators,
00:53 said he believed that enough evidence had emerged for police to consider prosecuting former executives.