Give Alan Bates a CBE for exposing Post Office scandal – signal our petition right here

The Mirror has launched a petition demanding that Alan Bates is honoured with at the very least a CBE after former Post Office chief govt Paula Vennells handed again hers.

Ms Vennells mentioned she had “listened” after over 1.2million individuals signed the 38 Degrees petition to strip her of the honour as a result of wrongful prosecution of a whole lot of postal employees.

We imagine Mr Bates, the ex-postmaster who led the decades-long struggle to reveal the Horizon system scandal, now ought to be recognised with the identical honour himself – if not a knighthood.

He had beforehand turned down an OBE as he believed it might be a “slap in the face” to the victims to simply accept an honour whereas Ms Vennells nonetheless held her CBE. Usually honours are introduced to mark the New Year and the Monarch’s birthday, however in particular circumstances they can be awarded at different instances.

Sign our petition HERE to present Post Office hero Alan Bates a CBE

Carol Vorderman, the presenter of the Pride of Britain Awards that recognised Alan Bates final 12 months, is main requires him to obtain a CBE at the very least. She mentioned: “When I think of heroes I think of brave people who fight a Goliath for the good of all, and not themselves. Who are tenacious, who never give in. Alan Bates is all of those things. He shouldn’t just get a CBE. He should be in the House of Lords getting his teeth into other matters. In Alan Bates we trust.”

Tory former Cabinet minister David Jones mentioned: “Alan Bates has obviously done a huge amount to expose what was going on at the Post Office. I very much hope he will be nominated again and will get the OBE. Personally speaking, I think that if Ms Vennells had the CBE, I think that he would easily be worth that.”

Labour MP Kevan Jones, a member of the Horizon compensation advisory board, mentioned: “Alan Bates should definitely take up his OBE, but I think he deserves an honour much higher for all his efforts.”

The CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) is the very best honour (excluding a knighthood/damehood), adopted by the OBE after which MBE.

Alan has campaigned tirelessly for nearly 20 years to reveal the reality in regards to the Post Office Scandal and get justice for subpostmasters whose lives it destroyed. He and his associate Suzanne Sercombe took over a store in Llandudno that included a publish workplace counter in 1998, investing £65,000 within the enterprise.

By the tip of 2000, after the introduction of the Post Office’s new Horizon laptop system, unexplained losses appeared in his accounts. In 2003, his contract was terminated. His cautious record-keeping proved he was not at fault, however the Post Office mentioned by then £1,200 was unaccounted for – a sum Alan mentioned was by no means there within the first place and had merely appeared because of a glitch within the system.

Alan’s dedication to get to the reality started virtually instantly. Setting up an internet site to spotlight his issues, he additionally reached out to journalists to spotlight the case and made contact with different subpostmasters. He led a gaggle of 555 postmasters in taking the Post Office to the High Court in a Group Litigation Order (GLO). In 2019, a decide dominated that the pc system contained “bugs, errors and defects”, and the Post Office agreed to settle with all of the claimants who joined the GLO.

Alan has develop into a nationwide treasure after thousands and thousands watched his lengthy and painful struggle for justice portrayed within the ITV drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office.

Sign our petition HERE to present Post Office hero Alan Bates a CBE