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Alan Bates, the former subpostmaster who introduced the Post Office to its knees, grew to become visibly emotional after being shocked with a luxurious vacation by Sir Richard Branson.
Bates, 69, and his long-term associate Suzanne Sercombe appeared on Monday’s episode (8 January) of This Morning to debate the Post Office scandal and ITV’s new four-part drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office.
In 1999, a whole lot of subpostmasters and subpostmistresses had been accused of theft, fraud, and false accounting after the Post Office’s IT system (Horizon, developed by Fujitsu) incorrectly reported money shortfalls throughout branches within the nation.
These accusations ripped aside folks’s lives, with many dropping their jobs and houses. At least 4 folks died by suicide after being wrongly accused of stealing hundreds of kilos.
During the phase on This Morning, Bates fought back tears after hosts Craig Doyle and Josie Gibson advised him and Sercombe that Virgin Atlantic boss Branson was sending them on an all-expenses paid vacation to Necker Island for a well-deserved break.
Necker Island is Branson’s sprawling 30-hectare non-public island situated within the British Virgin Islands. Branson prolonged the supply to Bates, 69, after studying the previous subpostmaster’s interview in The Sunday Times on Sunday 7 January.
“If Richard Branson is reading this, I’d love a holiday,” Bates quipped, referring to his tireless quest for victims of the scandal to be correctly compensated for the horrific ordeal.
Toby Jones as Alan Bates within the ITV drama
(ITV)
Gibson learn out Branson’s response to Bates on-air: “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. I can’t think of anyone who deserves a break more.”
Bates had tears in his eyes as Doyle knowledgeable the couple they had been additionally being gifted higher class return tickets to the vacation vacation spot on behalf of Virgin Atlantic, in addition to a Mediterranean cruise from Virgin Voyages.
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To today, not a single Post Office govt nor Fujitsu worker has confronted felony investigation for his or her half within the what has been known as the most important miscarriage of justice in Britain’s historical past.
Since the discharge of ITV’s “blood-boiling” sequence, over half 1,000,000 folks have signed a petition demanding that former Post Office chief govt, Paula Vennells, lose her CBE over the corporate’s dealing with of the Horizon scandal.
Bates mentioned the brand new TV present has made “a huge difference” to his lengthy marketing campaign for justice as a result of “it does such a good job of exposing the suffering people have been through”. “I’m not surprised the whole nation’s been moved by it,” he mentioned, throughout Monday’s TV look.
Sercombe, who has stood by Bates all through his combat, recounted the ordeal the victims’s households had been additionally subjected to, including that a whole lot of “lives have been changed” perpetually.
“Alan and I are, jointly, victims of this abuse by the Post Office and I have to say it reminds me that subpostmasters have families and all their families have been severely affected as well,” she defined. “It’s very important that they should be considered too. Lives have been changed – not just the postmasters but their entire families.”
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