Often referred to as the widest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, the Post Office scandal resulted in over 900 subpostmasters being convicted of theft between 1999 and 2015. In their New Year show, ITV tackled the incredible story of this fight for justice by Alan Bates and others, revealing just how shocking the entire scandal was, and prompting outrage and action from the British public.

Although there are small alterations to the narrative and characters, the audience is told from the outset that this is a true story, making the awful events that follow all the more distressing, and revealing the depth of the injustice behind news headlines that have cropped up over the years. Mr Bates vs The Post Office is not an easy watch – from the beginning, the knowledge of the injustice sits heavily. Jo, the much loved village sub postmaster, watches as her deficit doubles before her eyes having been told by the Horizon (the post office’s faulty computer system) that it will sort itself out. I gasped.

The outright lies told at all levels of the Post Office and Horizon’s administration continue to pile up, creating an appalling yet gripping and moving drama. ITV have managed to convey in detail the legalities and technicalities of the situation, whilst also perfectly rendering the catastrophic human cost of this injustice. The audience can share in the wins of these much loved and needed community members, whilst also feeling their pain.

We enter the story through Alan Bates (Toby Jones) and Jo (Monica Dolan), but the myriad of other sub postmasters met throughout the show, just a handful of the huge total of victims, all have individual tragedies captured on the screen. They make the story human again, after years of an ongoing scandal that at times has felt bogged down in legalities.

But beyond just creating a brilliant TV show, simultaneously informative, engaging and incredibly emotional, ITV have managed to create something that has moved beyond the screen, a testament to the political power of art. Since the show aired at the beginning of 2024, the UK government has brought in emergency laws to exonerate and compensate the victims of the Horizon scandal.

The exposition and recognition of the depth of injustice and the failure of the system that Mr Bates vs The Post Office has brought to the general public deserves credit. However, this compensation is insufficient. Alan Bates has rejected the government’s offer as only one sixth of what he requested, raising questions of virtue signalling, when lives have been ruined and even lost due to their inactivity over the past 20 years. 

Although brilliant at bringing this cause to the public attention, perhaps this show was needed 15 years ago. Just two months after the show originally aired, has the public pressure that it spurred been maintained, and how must the system be changed, not just to compensate the victims of the post office scandal, but to prevent similar miscarriages of justice going forward? However, despite the questions raised, Mr Bates vs The Post Office must be praised for raising them at all, and creating a simultaneously gripping television show, a moving memorial and a political manifesto for change, and the power of underdog action.

Rating: 5/5

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