Sir Alan Bates agrees multimillion-pound settlement over Post Office scandal

Sir Alan Bates has agreed a multimillion-pound settlement with the government more than two decades after he began the campaign for justice for post office operators over the Horizon IT scandal.

Bates has previously accused the government of presiding over a “quasi-kangaroo court” system for compensation, and last year said that post office operators may return to court over delays with settling claims.

The 70-year-old was knighted last year and was portrayed by the actor Toby Jones in the hit ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office, which thrust the plight of post office operators into the national spotlight. Bates revealed in May that he had been handed a “take it or leave it” compensation offer of less than half his original claim.

Bates, who led the campaign that ultimately turned into what has been called Britain’s biggest miscarriage of justice, said the final offer amounted to 49.2% of his original claim.

Sky News has reported that his original claim could have been in the region of £10m, indicating a final settlement with the government of between £4m and £5m.

“We can confirm that Sir Alan’s claim has reached the end of the scheme process and been settled,” a government spokesperson said. “We pay tribute to Sir Alan Bates for his long record of campaigning on behalf of victims and have now paid out over £1.2bn to more than 9,000 victims.”

Lawyers representing Bates have been contacted for comment.

More than 900 post office operators were convicted of offences including fraud, false accounting and theft between 1999 and 2015 after the faulty Horizon IT system falsely showed that money was missing in branch accounts.

The convictions were overturned by an unprecedented act of parliament last year.

Earlier this year, Bates accused the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), which took over administration of the compensation schemes from the Post Office, of reneging on assurances given when they were set up.

“The subpostmaster compensation schemes have been turned into quasi-kangaroo courts in which the DBT sits in judgment of the claims and alters the goalposts as and when it chooses,” he told the Sunday Times in May.

More than 550 post office operators were vindicated in 2019 when a 400-page judgment found the faulty system relied upon to secure the convictions was not “remotely robust” and the Post Office agreed to pay £58m to settle the claims.

In July, the first volume of the public inquiry into the scandal, led by retired high court judge Sir Wyn Williams, was published with findings including that at least 13 people had taken their own lives as a result of being accused of wrongdoing by the Post Office.

The offer of 49.2% came after Bates’s case was assessed by Sir Ross Cranston, a former high court judge, who adjudicates on cases in which a claimant disputes a compensation offer from the government and then objects to the results of a review by an independent panel.