He is affable but overwhelmed: since the release, at the beginning of January, of Mr Bates vs The Post Office, the series he produced for the ITV channel, Patrick Spence is in demand by the media around the world. Met at the beginning of February in his offices in London, the 56-year-old producer still has difficulty realizing why this four-episode series recounting the scandal of postmasters (“postmasters”) became in a few days the biggest audience success of the British channel of the last two decades. Between the late 1990s and the mid-2010s, hundreds of post office managers were unfairly accused of fraud due to faulty cash register software, called “Horizon”, offered by the Japanese group Fujitsu. .
The Post Office – a state-owned enterprise – has relentlessly pursued these postmasters franchisees. More than eight hundred of them were convicted by the courts, two hundred and thirty-six were thrown in prison. In 2019, a High Court judgment ruled that Horizon was “defective”, contrary to the claims of the Post Office and Fujitsu. Yet the elders postmasters, ruined and dishonored, still awaited reparation in relative indifference. Until the release of Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
A week after the broadcast of the four episodes, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, calling the scandal a “worst injustice in the history of the country”, announced a bill to collectively exonerate post office managers and compensate them as quickly as possible. Since then, not a day has passed without revelations from the press on the cruelty of the Post Office or the supposed responsibility of the various post office ministers or Fujitsu.
Ordinary heroes
“Avec Mr Bates vs The Post Office, we had ambitions, but not to the point of helping to change the law! What pushed the government to act was the anger our series provoked among the British. She was able to capture the state of mind of the country,” advances Patrick Spence. At the head of the production company AC Chapter One, we also owe him
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For Patrick Spence, the scandal of postmasters “resonates with the sentiment of many of our citizens who have lost confidence in our politicians and business leaders. Rebelling against an institution like the post office is also a way of saying enough is enough, decision-makers need to behave better.” The fact that the story is apolitical and about ordinary people that everyone can identify with also contributed to this enormous success. Played by Toby Jones, the pugnacious Alan Bates is one of the first post office managers to bring together victim colleagues; Jo Hamilton, the adorable manager played by Monica Dolan, is totally distraught by these accusations; Lee Castleton, played by Will Mellor, is a family man determined to defend his honor…
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