Post Office hero Alan Bates tells Starmer to set March compensation deadline

Post Office campaigner Sir Alan Bates has written to the Prime Minister demanding a deadline of March 20225 for the compensation claims of deputy postmasters over the Horizon scandal to be resolved.

Sir Alan, who was honored for his work seeking redress for deputy postmasters who suffered from faulty computer software, said he and hundreds of other Post Office workers have not been told when they will receive payments for what has been described as the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history.

He said he wrote to Sir Keir Starmer on October 2 to urge him to ensure that the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) completes all compensation claims under the Litigation Order scheme Group (GLO), one of four created, before March 2025.

If workers are not financially compensated, an independent body should be appointed to handle claims instead of the government, Sir Alan believes.

The Government said it is refusing to set a deadline for claimants to receive compensation applications because it wants everyone entitled to redress to receive it.

“Like many of the groups, my claim is not over. It’s ridiculous. I am one of many in this position,” said Sir Alan i.

“That’s why I wrote to the Prime Minister at the beginning of October, asking him to direct the department to ensure that all claims, and I’m talking about the GLO group, the original 555, were completed by March l next year.

“It leads me to believe that there is no reason why it cannot be done if that instruction has been given.

“But I have not yet received any reply from the Prime Minister to my letter. Perhaps it will appear on Monday.”

If the DBT could not meet that deadline, an outside person or company would have to be brought in to finish the job, he told the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA) group.

The JFSA could also seek further legal action if a March 2025 deadline is not guaranteed, Sir Alan told the group in a circular, with his decades-long battle for justice earning him a knighthood this year.

Sir Alan led a group of 555 workers in a landmark court case against the Post Office.

The plight of wrongly convicted postmasters and lovers was brought to a wider audience by the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office after the story was exposed by computer weekly.

In May, a new law was passed to overturn the wrongful convictions of more than 900 people linked to the flawed Horizon computer program.

Sir Alan, who heads the JFSA, has campaigned for financial reparations for the 555 victims of the scandal who took legal action against the Post Office.

The latest government figures show 201 have received their claims since the scheme was created in 2022.

“March will be three years after the plan was launched,” Sir Alan said. “You would have thought three years was enough time to do all this.”

Those who are eligible have been offered a fixed payment of £75,000, but the government believes around two-thirds will turn it down and seek more to cover the value of their claim.

Seema Mistra, who was jailed while pregnant after being wrongly convicted of stealing £70,000 from her post office in Surrey, said the delay in receiving compensation was “mental torture”.

She said: “It’s a terrible thing. Through no fault of my own, they put me in jail and we’ve yet to ask for our money back.

“It’s embarrassing. It just makes me angrier and angrier. It has to be now.”

It comes as it was reported that ministers are exploring plans to hand over ownership of the Post Office to thousands of deputy postmasters and housewives.

According to Sky News, the DBT has asked management consultancy BCG to look at options for mutualising the post office.

The government has reported that plans to consider handing over ownership of the institution to deputy postmasters would be “a mistake”, Sir Alan said, and instead called for a large corporation such as Amazon to buy it.

A report to Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, in the coming months is expected to assess whether the post office can become an employee-owned mutual.

Such a move would see the organization run like John Lewis, owned by its 74,000 employees.

But Sir Alan believes the Government should bear the cost of the move, with huge investment needed to modernize the Post Office’s “outdated business model”.

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“It needs a lot of modernization. Who is going to pay for it? Where is this money coming from?” he said

And governments are likely to have to underwrite or guarantee it. The burden could continue to be on the taxpayer for many years.”

He added a “big corporation like Amazon” to inject funds into the post office.

“I think the government should look at expressions of interest from big companies,” he added.

“The current business model is so outdated it’s unbelievable.”

A government spokesman said: “Sir Alan and his fellow campaigners have worked tirelessly to get justice for the thousands of innocent postmasters affected by this scandal and we understand their frustration after years of inaction. This government is fully committed to providing full and fair reparation.

“At the end of September, almost 270 people have been offered compensation, almost 80% of them have accepted, more are still being considered, and we are making initial offers to 90% of claims within 40 working days

“We want everyone who is entitled to compensation to receive it, so we will not set a deadline for when we will have to receive claims.”