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Wronged subpostmaster Sir Alan Bates seals seven-figure Post Office payout
Reach Daily Express | November 5, 2025 2:39 AM CST

Wronged sub-postmaster Sir Alan Bates has settled his seven-figure sum compensation claim.

The former Post Office worker previously labelled the redress schemes for victims of the Horizon scandal as "quasi-kangaroo courts".

Around 1,000 people were wrongly prosecuted and convicted throughout the UK between 1999 and 2015 as a result of the faulty IT system.

Its use saw the wrongful prosecution of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses due to errors in its accounting software.

The discredited system saw pillars of the community blamed - in some cases jailed - for having their fingers in the till in one of the worst miscarriages of justice in UK history.

The scandal was exposed years ago but made famous by the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office starring Toby Jones as Sir Alan Bates who exposed a litany of appalling failures that cost lives, livelihoods, and reputations.

Liverpool-born Sir Alan previously said the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) "sits in judgment of the claims and alters the goal posts as and when it chooses".

After the Bafta-winning documentary aired the long-running battle for justice accelerated dramatically.

A total of £1.23bn had been awarded to more than 9,100 sub-postmasters.

Sir Alan first received an offer of redress in January 2024, which he rejected, describing it as "cruel and derisory".

He was made another offer in May 2024 which he said was around a third of what he had requested. In May of this year, he said that he'd received a third offer for less than 50% of his original claim.

The final sum paid to Sir Alan, 71, has not been made public but his final settlement is believed to be worth as much as £5 million.

In a statement confirming his claim had been settled the DBT said: "We pay tribute to Sir Alan Bates for his long record of campaigning on behalf of victims and have now paid out over £1.2 billion to more than 9,000 victims.

"We can confirm that Sir Alan's claim has reached the end of the scheme process and has been settled."


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