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Speaker 1: And Amanda gem Nason. The computer system post Office spent

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Speaker 1: an arm and a leg on is faulty.

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Speaker 2: You're responsible for gloss.

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Speaker 1: I haven't got that money and I don't know where

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Speaker 1: it's gone.

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Speaker 2: These deficits were most likely caused by you.

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Speaker 3: That is the post Office case.

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Speaker 2: Our hopes, all our savings down the pand we.

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Speaker 1: Are fighting a war against an enemy owed by the

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Speaker 1: British government while we're just skint little people. Finally, five

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty five of us now ready to tell

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Speaker 1: our stories.

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Speaker 3: I stumbled across this story and it just blew my mind.

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Speaker 3: This happened a number of years ago, but this incredible

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Speaker 3: story of mister Bates versus the post Office has been

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Speaker 3: made into a television series watched by millions in England.

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Speaker 3: Hundreds of innocent postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly accused of theft,

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Speaker 3: fraud and false accounting due to a defective IT system.

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Speaker 3: Sounds like I robo did. Producer of this extraordinary show

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Speaker 3: is Patrick Spence and he joins us now.

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Speaker 2: Patrick Halive Redrick, Hello, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 4: Well, thanks for being on. This is so scary. This

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Speaker 4: could happen to anyone.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it did. It happened to hundreds of people.

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Speaker 2: He went to prison, they were criminalized, they were bankrupted,

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Speaker 2: their lives were ruined, and none of them had done

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Speaker 2: anything wrong.

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Speaker 3: In extraordinary tales. So they were accused of because they

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Speaker 3: I guess they subleased the post office and then they

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Speaker 3: were accused of cooking the books. Was in fact, it

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Speaker 3: was a faulty it system.

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Speaker 2: And based only on the evidence of a faulty computer system,

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Speaker 2: which the Post Office from twenty thirteen onwards had already

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Speaker 2: realized was faulty, and they carried on convicting for several

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Speaker 2: years later. So it's abhorrent, really, it is that bad.

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Speaker 3: And the stories were of pregnant women going to prison.

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Speaker 2: Yep. People took their own lives. It's a tragedy of

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Speaker 2: epic scale.

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Speaker 4: And all these people got together. I'm presuming that they

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Speaker 4: didn't know that each one had been affected by this.

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Speaker 2: One of the tactics of the Post Office was to

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Speaker 2: tell each this is a matter of fact, was to

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Speaker 2: tell each subpostmaster that they were the only one struggling

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Speaker 2: with the computer systems. So it took a long time

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Speaker 2: for them to look for others, and when they did

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Speaker 2: start to find each other, they realized they'd been lied to.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, the Post office tactics were really really criminal

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Speaker 2: in themselves.

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Speaker 3: As you say, the Post Office knew about this all

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Speaker 3: those years ago. The government would have known about this

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Speaker 3: presumably all those years ago. But the impact of this

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Speaker 3: TV show must have just shocked everybody.

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Speaker 2: Well, the story had been out there for a while

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Speaker 2: and no one had quite understood the emotional kind of

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Speaker 2: upheaval and the horror that they had suffered. So what

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Speaker 2: the drama did was it brought home to the nation.

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Speaker 2: It was on a big commercial channel US. They brought

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Speaker 2: home to the nation what these people had been through.

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Speaker 2: And then everyone got angry and everyone rose up, and

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Speaker 2: the newspapers were able to start writing about it. They

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Speaker 2: had tried, in all fairness, they tried to interest the

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Speaker 2: country and suddenly, you know, it led a torch paper.

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Speaker 2: And then for about two frantic weeks it was the

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Speaker 2: lead story every day. And finally, after eight days after transmission,

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Speaker 2: the Prime Minister stood up in the House of Comments

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Speaker 2: and said, we're going to change the law to issue

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Speaker 2: a mass pardon for all of them. Wow, so it

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Speaker 2: was a big deal.

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Speaker 4: So who gets held Accounnibal out of all.

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Speaker 2: This, Well, that's a really good question, and that's the

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Speaker 2: next stage. There is an inquiry ongoing and a lot

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Speaker 2: of answers, and I think a lot more horrific facts

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Speaker 2: are going to come out over the next six months.

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Speaker 2: And you know, the very real hope is that the

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Speaker 2: senior management at the Post office and Fujitsu the computer,

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Speaker 2: the people that built the computer, and quite possibly people

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Speaker 2: within government who sat on the Post Offices board were

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Speaker 2: will be held to account.

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Speaker 4: Well, if anything, it will put bureaucrats on. If you're

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Speaker 4: a bureaucrat and you're listening to this, you know you're

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Speaker 4: not just not going to get away with it. Robodip,

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Speaker 4: which I don't know if you're familiar with.

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Speaker 3: We had a similar thing which happened.

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Speaker 4: And they just wash their hands of it. Governments are

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Speaker 4: becoming more and more accountable.

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Speaker 3: And hear what you say, they get an apology. You know,

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Speaker 3: people have taken their lives, people have lost their livelihoods.

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Speaker 3: It's not even the beginning to be enough, is it.

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Speaker 2: I've done interviews with various people around the world now

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Speaker 2: because this story is spreading, and each time I go

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Speaker 2: to a new country to talk, they say, we've got

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Speaker 2: one just like it, just like you're saying now. There

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Speaker 2: is a story in Japan, in America, in Germany. They've

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Speaker 2: each got their own version where people who either sit

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Speaker 2: in senior roles in government or run big corporations or

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Speaker 2: both have behaved like bullies or liars or cheats and

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Speaker 2: done hideous things which are coming to a It's really sad.

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Speaker 4: Who would who would have thought politicians would lie to us?

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Speaker 3: That's just well, Patrick, I can't wait to see this show.

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Speaker 3: I've read so much about it, mister Bates versus the

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Speaker 3: Post Office. Your premier is tonight eight fifty on Channel

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Speaker 3: seven and seven plus. There's two epps and you can

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Speaker 3: stream them as of tonight on seven plus.

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Speaker 2: Patrick, thanks for joining us where it was a real pleasure.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.