Hero campaigner Alan Bates has accused the Post Office of spending 23 years trying to “discredit and silence” him while giving evidence to the inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal.
Mr Bates founded the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, and led a group of 555 subpostmasters who took the Post Office to the High Court over the scandal – which saw the company’s employees prosecuted over glitches in the IT system making it wrongly appear that money was missing from their branches’ accounts.
As the inquiry turns its focus to governance, redress and how the Post Office and others responded, Mr Bates – whose story recently became subject of the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office – testified on Tuesday for the first time.
In written evidence, Mr Bates said the Post Office had spent the entirety of the 23 years he has been campaigning “denying, lying, defending, and attempting to discredit and silence me”.
Former chief executive Paula Vennells, who led the Post Office at the height of the scandal, will face the inquiry in late May, amid fresh questions over whether she misled parliament.
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Alan Bates ‘struggled with accounting’, internal Post Office document claims
An internal Post Office document, titled “Horizon Integrity”, described Alan Bates as having “become unmanageable”.
The apparent review of possible cases of Horizon faults claimed the former subpostmaster “clearly struggled with the accounting and despite copious support did not follow instructions”.
Detailing several other possible known cases, it then states: “Details of the cases do bear looking at.”
Mr Bates denied that he struggled with accounting, laughed when asked if he received copious support, and on the matter of instructions, said: “Basically try and bankrupt myself? No I didn’t, not to that extent.”
Andy Gregory9 April 2024 12:07
Post Office told MP it had ‘lost confidence’ in Alan Bates, document shows
While Alan Bates said he “never” received a reason for the Post Office terminating his contract, he has been shown a letter by the company to an MP in 2003 claiming that it had “lost confidence in his willingness to conduct the job in the manner expected”.
The claim came in correspondence – seen by the inquiry – to MP Betty Williams, who had written to the Post Office to relay her constituent’s concern about the temporary closure of the branch run by Mr Bates.
Asked if that had ever been explained to him, Mr Bates told the inquiry: “No.”
Andy Gregory9 April 2024 12:02
Alan Bates believes Post Office wanted ‘to make a lesson’ of his case
Alan Bates has said he believed the Post Office were trying to “make a lesson” of his case when terminating his contract in 2003.
“I felt they were going to make a lesson of my case – because a number of other people knew what was going on at that time, and I think it was something the Post Office liked to try and give lessons of how they were in charge,” he told the inquiry.
Andy Gregory9 April 2024 11:57
Alan Bates says it was ‘pretty obvious’ Post Office ‘were after me’
Alan Bates has said he was “never” given an explanation for his dismissal by the Post Office.
Asked by the inquiry’s lead counsel how it felt to receive a letter from the Post Office in August 2003 telling him they were terminating his contract that November, he said: “I was annoyed with them, to put it mildly, but I think it was partly expected in a way.
“Because it was pretty obvious they were after me, one way or another, and the build-up of correspondence over the period was certainly pointing in that direction.
“But I always found it quite interesting that I pulled them up on the point about trying to terminate me and my contract under Clause 12 of the contract … but they didn’t do it that way. They decided to go just under this ‘any reason they wanted in three months’ notice without giving a reason’”.
The inquiry’s lead counsel clarified: “So it’s a ‘without fault, without reason’ termination, just on three month’s written notice”, adding: “You’d had the £1,100 written off, you’ve had the Post Office acknowledging it was because of a genuine dispute over whether Horizon was to blame for it, you’d been rolling over other surpluses since then with Post Office knowledge – and then this arrives.”
Mr Bates replied: “It was a bit strange in a way, because we were a very busy Post Office, in fact it was a time when a lot of Post Offices were losing trade but our sales figures were very high in the region, we developed a lot of new business in there. But it was their decision to do it [fire me] and so be it.”
He added: “I did offer at one point when … we were heading in this direction …
Andy Gregory9 April 2024 11:57
“If you’re unhappy with the way I’m providing your service then pay us back our initial investment and take the Post Office away, I would have been quite happy for them to do that, and I probably wouldn’t be here today on that basis.”
Andy Gregory9 April 2024 11:54
Alan Bates fired after refusing to pay for unexplained shortfalls, correspondence shows
Alan Bates has been shown correspondence between himself and the Post Office in which he was suddenly ordered to pay for unexplained shortfalls – and refused.
Citing his contract, Mr Bates told the Post Office he was under no obligation to pay for sums which he could not be sure he in fact owed the company, the documents show.
Months later, he received a response informing him that his contract would be terminated.
Andy Gregory9 April 2024 11:45
Post Office did not reply to December 2000 letter about Horizon concerns, says Alan Bates
Alan Bates has told the Post Office IT Inquiry he never got a response to a letter he sent to the Post Office in December 2000 in which he raised concerns about the Horizon IT system.
In another letter to the Post Office seen by the inquiry, dated January 7 2002, Mr Bates wrote: “When I signed my contract with Post Office Counters, I did not sign to accept the liabilities arising from the shortcomings of a less than adequate Horizon system.”
Andy Gregory9 April 2024 11:40
Bates shown internal Post Office document with range of options for dealing with Horizon shortfall complaints
Alan Bates has been shown an internal Post Office document – not disclosed to him at the time – which shows a number of options available in responding to his request for a shortfall to be written off.
The document contains three options – either to grant the subpostmaster’s receipt in full, to make them pay for the sum, or two grant a partial receipt.
“Were you aware at that time that the Post Office seemingly used a standard form with ‘delete as appropriate’ boxes on it?” Mr Bates was asked by the inquiry’s lead counsel.
“No I didn’t, but now you mention it I do recall a conversation that the retail network manager at the time had with this department at my office, so I only heard one side of the conversation, and it was about arranging for this write-off voucher,” Mr Bates said.
“And I seem to recall, and it’s stuck in [my] memory, and he said, ‘oh, it’s another one of those Horizon losses’. It’s just one of those little things that sticks in the back of your mind that was said at the time.”
Andy Gregory9 April 2024 11:22
Alan Bates revisits decades-old letters appealing to Post Office for help with Horizon
Alan Bates has been shown letters he sent to the Post Office about accounting shortfalls
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