Post Office hero Sir Alan Bates says ‘all of the baddies are hiding’ after big payout
Sir Alan, 70, is understood to have been awarded £4-5m in compensation and is now focusing on getting criminal convictions against those found guilty of wrongdoing
Hero Sir Alan Bates says “all the baddies seem to be hiding” after settling his claim for a reported seven-figure sum over the Post Office scandal. Around 1,000 people were wrongly prosecuted and convicted between 1999 and 2015 over the faulty Horizon IT system.
Sir Alan, 70, is understood to have been awarded £4-5m in compensation and is now focusing on getting criminal convictions against those found guilty of wrongdoing. The former sub postmaster, who campaigned for victims of the scandal, said: “I don’t think we’ll get that (justice) for a long time yet. All the baddies seem to be hiding.”
Sir Alan had rejected two counter-offers to his claim from the Department of Business and Trade (DBT) before settling. He said: “I’d run the full course. I couldn’t appeal it any further.
“If I hadn’t accepted what they were prepared to give me, I wouldn’t have got anything. It was take it or leave it. You have to be realistic about these things. We’re getting on nowadays. We don’t need vast quantities of money, we need enough hopefully to tide us over.”
There are around 100 subpostmasters yet to settle their claims.
Sir Alan, whose fight was highlighted in ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, added: “I have to remind them, listen to your legal team and keep challenging it, but it’s not an endless process. Ultimately it is an ex gratia scheme, they don’t legally have to give you anything.”
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 been settled.”
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