Post Office scandal: from suicides to jail time with child killers — the heartbreaking stories of the postmasters

A young Surrey mum, jailed when she was eight weeks pregnant with her second child. An innocent Hampshire grandmother who felt she had "no choice" but to plead guilty to false accounting. A cricket-loving father-of-two who threw himself under a bus after being wrongly accused of theft.

Alan Bates

Post Office: Craig-y-Don, Llandudno, north Wales

There's a scene in the acclaimed new ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office in which Toby Jones — the actor playing Alan Bates, 69, the "steely" underdog hero of the drama thanks to his decades-long fight against the Post Office on behalf of hundreds of his wrongfully-prosecuted colleagues — tells a room full of former sub-postmasters why it's important to join his legal battle against their ex-employer.

“I’ve told you all the things the law is not going to do for us,” the former Morris dancer, cat-owner and keen fell-walker is seen telling his peers in an emotional scene ahead of the court battle. “But I want to talk to you about what brought us together. All those things that we’ve been fighting for ever since.”

Like so many of his former colleagues, Bates — a Liverpool-born graphic-design graduate who met his wife at a clog-dancing event and bought a seaside post office in north Wales in 1998 — had his contract terminated by the Post Office with three months' notice in 2003, after a shortfall in his accounts was found. He had invested £65,000 in the business by this point, and he was accused of owing £1,000. But unlike so many others who were wrongly accused, Bates always refused to accept the accounting errors were his.

He suspected the Horizon computer system was to blame and set up the Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance in 2009, bringing together hundreds of other sub-postmasters together in a 20-year campaign for justice. The campaign resulted in a High Court judgement in 2019 and is still ongoing, as Bates — who is now retired — continues to battle to get justice for each and every one of his colleagues affected by the scandal.

"At 68, I would love to be able to take my foot off the pedal. But I will stay involved until everyone from the original group who is entitled to compensation receives the full financial redress they're eligible for. Once everyone's received their money, I'll feel I've done my bit," he told a local news outlet last year, around the same time he turned down an OBE in protest against the "insult[ing]" fact that former Post Office boss Paula Vennells still retains her CBE.

Bates' work is still far from finished, as he fights for the remaining victims to receive compensation, but a small happy ending came this week, when Richard Branson spotted Bates' tongue-and-cheek plea for a free holiday in The Times. "Dear Alan, I did get a chance to read your moving interview in The Times, and we’d love to offer you and Suzanne a well earned holiday on Necker Island," Branson wrote in a response that was read out to a choked-up Bates and his wife live on TV this morning. "I can’t think of anyone who deserves a break more. Hopefully see you there."

Jones' on-screen portrayal has been praised for accurately depicting Bates' stubborn, dogged yet humble, unassuming heroism. He might not be glamorous or particularly enjoy the limelight, but his years of hard campaigning — which he spearheaded from the desk at his modest semi overlooking the Welsh countryside, next to a cuddly toy of Postman Pat’s black and white cat Jess — has been called a painful David and Goliath struggle in the UK's biggest miscarriage of justice. The fact that he is a down-to-earth, everyday retiree who one interviewer says reminds her of her own father makes his newfound national hero status all the more moving.

His wife Suzanne Sercombe, 68, who he lives with alongside their black cat Missy, puts it best herself. “He doesn’t like to show vulnerability really, in any way,” she told The Times this week. “If he’s on a mission, nothing’s going to bring him down. It’s not ruthlessness, because he’s very kindly with it. He’s just a very committed person... He doesn’t look like a superhero or a knight in shining armour,” she says. “But if you need somebody to rely upon, he’s your man.”

Lee Castleton

Post Office: Bridlington, Yorkshire

91. That's how many times Lee Castleton says he called the Post Office's helpline about issues with the Horizon IT system at his Post Office in Bridlington in Yorkshire.

The former sub-postmaster was 39 and had two young children when he was told he owed a debt of £27,000 to the Post Office, where he worked at the time. He went to court to contest it, but could not afford a barrister and lost. He was left with more than £300,000 in costs and forced to declare bankruptcy — a saga that he says felt like a "war" and tore his family's lives apart.

“We were ostracised in Bridlington," he told Times Radio recently. "We were abused in the streets. Our daughter was bullied. She was on the school bus and spat on by a young boy because [they thought] her father was a thief, and he’d take money from old people.”

Castleton — a father-of-two described as an "everyday guy" by Will Mellor, the actor who plays him in the ITV drama — says he is still "really, really angry" about the ongoing ordeal. He now works in a factory, after agreeing to a settlement with the Post Office in 2017, and hopes the ITV drama will drum up fresh support for other victims. "It's been very difficult to try to push our cause," he says. “We’re just people from your village shop or your local post office. And it's been really hard to drum up support, it's been very difficult to get people to believe.” He said he hoped those listening would put pressure on those in power to help their cause.