Sir Alan Bates is a campaigner who has devoted his life to challenging one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history.
Born in Liverpool and raised in North Wales, Sir Alan worked for many years in museums and heritage. In 1998, he and his partner Suzanne, decided on a lifestyle change and took onboard a post office in Llandudno. The following year, the Post Office introduced new accounting software, developed by Fujitsu and known as Horizon. Sir Alan quickly spotted significant problems, most notably, the system duplicating transactions giving the impression that money was going missing.
Sir Alan made hundreds of phone calls to the Post Office helpline only to be repeatedly told there was nothing wrong with the system. Indeed, the Post Office consistently told individual postmasters they were the only people reporting concerns, and that they would have to make up the shortfall out of their own pockets. Sir Alan refused to accept this, and subsequently Post Office terminated his contract.
Meanwhile, the Post Office had begun pursuing hundreds of postmasters through the legal system, falsely claiming that they were stealing monies. They lost their income, their businesses, and their reputations. Some went bankrupt, lost their homes, or were sent to prison. Some turned to alcohol or developed mental health problems. Some took their own lives.
From the outset Sir Alan simply did not believe that he was the only person affected and set up a website where other people could share their experiences. Ten years after he first identified the issues, his story was reported, alongside several others, in Computer Weekly. Others then came forward and led to Sir Alan co-founding the Justice for Subpostmasters Campaign. The Post Office committed to an investigation but refused to let the external forensic accountants properly conduct their work and eventually rejected their findings.
Sir Alan then led a civil action involving 555 cases, heard in the High Court over two years, the findings of which established that Post Office had been aware for many years of the errors in the system. The damning judgments against Post Office forced it to pay out £60 million in compensation, but after legal costs, left each claimant finished with a proportional share of the £10m left. A statutory public inquiry was set up, but the Post Office continued to try and evade accountability, and many of those responsible for the scandal have yet to be brought to account.
The outcome of the High Court action brought considerable political pressure to bear and resulted in legislation which would quash the convictions and provide those affected with meaningful financial redress and compensation.
In 2024, Sir Alan was portrayed by Toby Jones in the award-winning ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which brought the scandal to the wider public. The public inquiry into the extent of the wrongdoing remains ongoing .
Sir Alan has spent twenty-five years of his life on this campaign. While refusing to accept an OBE whilst the former head of the post office retained her CBE for services to Post Office, he has since been knighted, given a Pride of Britain Award, and a special award from the First Minister of the Welsh government.
His extraordinary determination in the face of grotesque injustice has helped vindicate hundreds, if not thousands of independent small business people whose lives have been destroyed, emphasising the importance of justice and accountability. It is an honour to recognise his tireless dedication to uncovering the truth.
Read more about the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance