Yahoo News What happened to the sub-postmasters on Mr Bates vs The Post Office?
The ITV drama delved into the Post Office scandal which resulted in hundreds of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses being falsely prosecuted.
A dramatisation of the Post Office scandal has brought the wrongful prosecutions of hundreds of people back on the news agenda.
Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which is being broadcast across four nights this week on ITV1, depicts the real-life stories of those sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses who were falsely accused of theft, fraud and false accounting.
Between 2000 and 2014, more than 700 staff members were falsely prosecuted based on incorrect information from the Post Office's Horizon computer system, installed and maintained by Fujitsu.
Some were imprisoned following convictions for false accounting and theft, while many were ruined financially, and some have since died.
Here is what happened to those featured in Mr Bates vs The Post Office:
Alan Bates
Played by actor Toby Jones in the four-part drama, Alan Bates, 68, is the former sub-postmaster who was a leading figure in exposing one of the UK's biggest ever miscarriages of justice.
He was at the heart of the campaign to expose the Horizon IT scandal and a subsequent legal action against the Post Office was taken in his name.
His contract with the Post Office was terminated in 2003 after he refused to accept liability for alleged losses in his branch account in Llandudno, Wales, and he and his wife lost the £65,000 they had invested in the business.
Bates was always convinced the shortfalls in his account were the result of a glitch in the Horizon computer system.
He continues to campaign for justice for those affected by the scandal, and turned down an MBE in the New Year's Honours list, saying the "job isn't done yet".
Jo Hamilton
Played by actor Monica Dolan in the show, Jo Hamilton, 66, is a former sub-postmistress who was wrongly accused of stealing £36,000 from the Post Office in the village shop she ran in South Warnborough, Hampshire.
When the Horizon computer system showed shortfalls on her account, she thought she had made a mistake and began paying it off using her own money, and ended up remortgaging her house twice.
When the shortfall increased to £10,000 in 2006, she was sacked and charged with the theft of £36,000.
During her court appearance in February 2008, dramatised in the show, she accepted a lesser charge of false accounting, agreed to pay the money back and was sentenced to a community order.
She was later forced to sell her village shop and now works as a cleaner.
Hamilton met Bates at a meeting of postmasters and mistresses affected by the scandal in November 2009 - they became friends and fought together to seek justice.
Her own conviction was eventually quashed in 2021 but she still campaigned on behalf of others who were wrongly convicted.
Lee Castleton
Played by actor Will Mellor in the programme, Lee Castleton ran a Post Office in Bridlington, east Yorkshire, from 2003, but within a year the computer system showed about £25,000 in discrepancies.
He called the helpline a total of 91 times in an effort to sort the issue as he correctly believed the Horizon system was at fault.
However, the Post Office took him to court, where Castleton ended up defending himself as he could not afford a lawyer. He was ordered to repay the money and also pay costs of £321,000, which left him bankrupt.
He was forced to close his shop, sell his home and move into rental accommodation, while he and his wife had to move their two children to a new school because of bullying.
Earlier this year, Castleton said: “It changed our lives completely. It was absolutely terrible and devastating.”
Noel Thomas
Played by actor Ifan Huw Dafydd in the show, Noel Thomas, 76, from Anglesey, Wales, was wrongly convicted of theft and false accounting.
He was falsely accused of taking £48,000 from the Post Office and was sent to prison for nine months. Thomas was disqualified as a councillor and his daughter was forced to sell her home to pay legal costs.
His conviction was overturned in 2021 but he continues to fight for justice and adequate compensation for those affected by the scandal.
Thomas spent his 60th birthday in HM Kirkham prison near Blackpool. Earlier this year, Thomas said he would reject an offer of £600,000 compensation.
Michael Rudkin
Michael Rudkin, played in the ITV drama by Shaun Dooley, bought a Post Office branch in Ibstock, Leicestershire, in October 2000 with his wife Susan, but their careers were later wrecked by the Horizon IT scandal.
The drama describes how Mrs Rudkin ran the branch while her husband, chairman of the negotiating committee of the National Federation of SubPostmasters, was away on 'union business'. She was wrongly convicted of stealing £44,000 and given a suspended jail sentence, while Mr Rudkin lost his job and union position.
The couple eventually turned their Ibstock home into a bed and breakfast for a second income. They were also offered £600,000 compensation, but Mr Rudkin described the offer as 'obscene', telling the BBC in September that the offer amounted to only £100 a day since the couple's problems began.
Mr Rudkin said: "We will fight. We are now at retirement age. We have to plan, whether we like it or not, for end of life.
"At the end of the day the asset we have got is the family home which would have to be sold up to pay for a retirement home and some money in the bank.
"I didn't set out in life to have a pauper's funeral and I have no intention of accepting it now."
What happened to Post Office CEO Paula Vennells?
Paula Vennells, played by Lia Williams in the ITV drama, was head of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019. Vennells oversaw the organisation whilst it routinely denied there were problems with its Horizon IT system.
After the Post Office paid out £58m in compensation to sub-postmasters who were falsely prosecuted, she later said she was “truly sorry” for the “suffering” caused to those who were wrongly convicted of offences.
In the 2019 New Year's honours, Vennells was awarded a CBE for 'services to the Post Office and to charity'. There have since been widespread calls for her to have the honour removed. Labour MP Kevan Jones (North Durham) said he has written on numerous occasions to the Honours Forfeiture Committee to get her honour removed, but he has yet to receive an answer.
The Post Office scandal inquiry
A public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal is ongoing, with postmasters claiming that senior Post Office staff either knew about the system's failings or "shut their eyes" to them.
Lawyers for those wrongly accused said the inquiry has produced enough evidence for police to investigate senior staff at the Post Office. They want Sir Wyn Williams, chairman of the inquiry, to pass files to the director of public prosecutions once the inquiry is completed next year.
It emerged last month that the Post Office has almost halved the amount it has set aside for payments to those wrongly convicted, from £487m to £244m. The government said that 86 convictions have been overturned and £21m has been paid in compensation.
