David and Goliath at the Post Office

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, April 19th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a British miniseries about the price of justice.

From 1999 to 2015, hundreds of British sub-postmasters were wrongly convicted of theft and fraud, because a computer glitch made it look like their post offices were losing money.

EICHER: A new series airing on PBS tells the story of the long painful road those postmasters had to endure … just to get their good names back.

WORLD arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino now with a review of Mr Bates vs. the Post Office.

ALAN: One first-class stamp there, Megan. 28 p.

MEGAN: How much?

ALAN: I know, daylight robbery. That’s the Post Office for you.

COLLIN GARBARINO: Mr Bates vs. the Post Office is a four-part series on PBS’s Masterpiece that dramatizes the events surrounding the British Post Office scandal. For hundreds of years, British subpostmasters kept their accounts with paper and pen. But in 1999, Post Office Ltd, the government-owned corporation that franchises local post offices, rolled out a new computer system called Horizon. It was supposed to make life for the humble subpostmaster easier. Instead of solving problems, glitches in the system led the computer to report that some post offices were experiencing chronic deficits.

ALAN: They say, money’s somehow gone missing from this branch, which it hasn’t. And I have to pay it back, which I won’t. So I say, prove it. Prove that I’m wrong and you’re right.

Post Office Ltd prosecuted some for theft and fraud, and subpostmasters who couldn’t or wouldn’t make up the deficits out of their own pockets lost their businesses. Hundreds of honest men and women had their finances and their reputations wrecked.

SUZANNE: No job, no income, nowhere to live. All our hopes, dreams, all our savings down the pan.

Mr Bates vs. the Post Office begins with stories of hardship and loss. We see people disappointed because they expect that they’ll be able to solve their problems if they were just open and honest about what’s happening. Auditors from the central office merely demand they pay their debts, and the Horizon helpdesk isn’t any help at all, telling each subpostmaster that no one else is having problems.

JO: It, it, it’s just doubled right in front of my eyes. Now, now it says I’m 4,000 pounds down.

CALL CENTER: It’ll sort itself out—these things do.

While hundreds of lives are ruined, the executives at Post Office Ltd only seem to care about protecting their brand and quashing any criticism of the outrageously expensive Horizon system.

But one disgraced subpostmaster named Alan Bates wouldn’t back down. He found others who had been wronged by Post Office Ltd, and together they formed the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance. But getting justice isn’t easy when you’re dealing with a government-owned corporation with limitless funds to pay expensive attorneys.

ALAN: You know, when I first got legal advice, right at the very beginning, I was warned that if I tried to take them to court, even if I won, the Post Office would just keep appealing till I run out of money.

Mr Bates vs. the Post Office, along with a documentary featuring the story’s real-life participants, is airing on PBS all month, and can also be watched via the PBS app or website. And I think it’s a terrific David vs. Goliath story, especially because it's true. Also, The show is pretty family friendly since PBS mutes two bad words that are in the British version. However, there are a couple of depictions of self-harm.

Toby Jones, whom Marvel fans will recognize as Dr. Zola from the Captain America movies, plays Alan Bates. It’s a perfect bit of casting. Jones projects the just right amount of righteous curmudgeonliness for a man stubborn enough to fight the Post Office for 20 years.

ALAN: We, we’ve all lost our businesses and our savings. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

In some ways it’s hard to believe the extent of the miscarriage of justice in Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office, but in other ways, this true story will feel all too familiar to those of us who’ve dealt with organizations that wish only to absolve themselves of blame rather than correcting any mistakes.

Despite the hardships, the series has its feel-good moments. Alan and his fellow subpostmasters find some allies along the way, and a measure of the story’s wrongs get righted. But the British people still await a full reckoning of the damage done.

BOB: No, it’s just the more of you people I meet, the less, uh, I know how you’re all still standing.

The series asks the question of whether the leadership at Post Office Ltd was incompetent or evil. The answer is both. The central office put too much faith in a faulty computer system, and probably didn’t realize until too late what was going on. But then once they did know they obstructed, delayed, and circled the wagons—anything to avoid admitting error. They said they were trying to maintain the brand’s good reputation, but by engaging in bullying tactics and a coverup, they were really just trying to cloak their own ineptitude. That’s the evil part.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

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