Post Office campaigner Alan Bates threatens further legal action

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Sir Alan Bates, the lead campaigner in the UK Post Office Horizon scandal, has threatened further legal action to secure redress for victims unless a deadline for payouts is set.

Bates, who was knighted this year for services to justice on behalf of former sub-postmasters and their families, warned MPs on Tuesday that more litigation could be needed as compensation was taking so long.

Appearing before the House of Commons business and trade committee, Bates also said he did not receive a reply from Sir Keir Starmer after he asked for help following the biggest miscarriage of justice in modern British history.

More than 900 Post Office branch managers were convicted between 1999 and 2015 for offences including theft and false accounting using flawed evidence from Japanese technology company Fujitsu’s Horizon system. Others were not criminally convicted but poured in their own life savings to make up the supposed shortfalls.

Bates founded the campaign group Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance in 2009 and was the named litigant in a landmark 2019 court case that established accounting shortfalls alleged by the state-owned group were based on faulty data.

MPs this year passed legislation that was introduced by the previous Conservative government to overturn convictions after a TV drama about the scandal caused a public outcry. In the Budget last week, the Labour government said it would set aside £1.8bn in compensation for victims.

However, Bates, a former sub-postmaster, said too many claims were being held up as he repeated his calls for a deadline for payouts to be imposed.

“The bureaucracy of the whole thing is definitely a big problem,” he said. “People have been waiting far too long.” He added that more legal action would be considered, warning: “It might be quicker for us to go back to court.”

Bates said he had written to the prime minister about a month ago to “ask for his help” in setting a deadline but “never received a response”.

Four different schemes for redress have been set up, and as of the end of October about £440mn had been paid to more than 3,000 claimants, according to the government.

MPs on Tuesday also heard distressing accounts from victims of the scandal and problems they had encountered receiving compensation.

Jill Donnison, who worked in her late mother’s branch, said it had taken two months to complete the paperwork required to secure redress and that some of the questions asked of her were “just impossible to answer”.

Downing Street said Starmer had now responded to Bates’ letter, and “it was obviously right that we took the time to consider the issues” raised.

But Number 10 said the government did not want to impose an “arbitrary cut-off date, which could result in some claimants missing the deadline”.

“We obviously don’t want to put pressure on claimants and put them off contesting their claim,” Downing Street added. “The government is committed to getting redress to those affected as quickly as possible and is doing all it can to increase the pace of redress.”