Mr Bates vs The Post Office on ITV: What it's about, full cast, when it's on and how many episodes there are
01.01.2024 - 16:47
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
A new year brings plenty of new drama series to get stuck into. The latest from ITV follows the shocking real-life story of the Post Office scandal, which has been unfolding for the past two decades.
Mr Bates vs the Post Office tells of one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British legal history. Hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and postmistresses - the people who run post office branches - were wrongly accused of theft, fraud, and false accounting due to a defective IT system.
Many of the wronged workers were prosecuted and some were imprisoned for crimes they never committed. Their lives were irreparably damaged by the scandal.
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Toby Jones, who recently appeared in ITV's The Long Shadow, stars as Alan Jones, a sub-postmaster who lost his job after refusing to pay for lost earnings caused by the scandal. He later led a campaign to help other employees who'd also been wrongly accused.
Eventually, 555 sub-postmasters successfully sued the Post Office. The case triggered a public inquiry into what happened, which is still ongoing. Convictions have since been overturned and employees have received compensation.
Read on to find out more about the drama, which begins on ITV1 on Monday, January 1.
Mr Bates vs The Post Office starts on Monday January 1, 2024 on ITV1 and ITVX. There are four episodes in the series, airing across four consecutive nights until Thursday January 4.
The programme airs from 9pm until 10pm each night.