For the last four Sundays, we’ve been watching Mr. Bates v. the Post Office on PBS, starring British actor Toby Jones as Alan Bates. It’s a four-part dramatization by ITV of the true story of what happened when the British Post Office adopted a computerized accounting system called Horizon. Developed by Fujitsu, Horizon was supposed to be a significant cost savings and huge increase in efficiency.
That’s not what happened. Horizon was also full of bugs and glitches. The way the bugs worked, it looked like the subpostmasters – the people operating the postal stores on all the High Streets in Britain – were stealing money. The system kept identifying shortfalls.
Frustrated subpostmasters would call the Help Line, to be told they were the only ones reporting a problem. The Post Office sided completely with Fujitsu. And the subpostmasters were expected to reimburse the post office for the shortfalls. Because the Post Office, a government monopoly, had the legal authority to conduct its own criminal investigations and court proceedings, it took people to court. More than 900 people were convicted, in fact. More than 2,750 others paid from their own savings.
Some went to prison. Some killed themselves. People’s lives and reputations were ruined. And it was all because Fujitsu wouldn’t acknowledge the program’s errors, and post office executives supported Fujitsu. Even when they all knew better.
One man, Alan Bates, a subpostmaster in Wales, took the system on – and wouldn’t let go. It took 20 years, but eventually the courts recognized “the greatest miscarriage of justice in British legal history.” The saga continues; court judgments against former defendants are being appealed and vacated. Parliament is holding hearings. And the British Government has to answer the uncomfortable question of what responsibility it has.
The Post Office’s CEO from 2012 to 2019, Paula Vennels, stoutly maintained that the Horizon system s robust.” Her husband advised against using “emotive” words like “bugs.” She knew that Horizon had problems, and ignored her own management who urged that the prosecutions stop. She was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) when she retired in 2019.
The ITV program, which aired in January in Britain, created a huge wave of outrage. Within days, a million people had signed an online petition that she be stripped of her CBE honor. King Charles didn’t wait. He ordered it returned for “bringing the honours system into disrepute.”
Paula Vennels also happens to be a priest in the Church of England.
PBS is airing a one-hour documentary on the scandal. There will be no second series of the dramatization; the producers said it’s time for the documentaries to take over.
Fujitsu has a statement posted from the home page of its web site.
The dramatization may be one of the most horrifying things I’ve watched on PBS. Each episode starts with the words “This is a true story.” It shows what happens when a government agency – a government monopoly – is give too much power and becomes too arrogant to acknowledge it’s made a mistake. Instead, it keeps compounding the mistakes.
And lives were destroyed.
Top photograph by Johnny Briggs via Unsplash. Used with permission.
Some Wednesday Readings
Life and Land in Anglo-Saxon England – Eleanor Parker at History Today.
Bird in hand – artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.
“Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter,” poem by John Crowe Ransom – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.
Among the missing, among the dead: black poetry in America – William Logan at New Criterion.
