Irish Examiner view: TV series offers a useful warning to us all 

'Mr Bates vs The Post Office' dramatises the miscarriage of justice in the North that saw hundreds of people wrongly prosecuted for fraud that did not occur

The TV drama series, 'Mr Bates vs The Post Office', shows us that truth is stranger than fiction, and tech is far from infallible. Picture: iStock

The year starts with a useful, and dramatic, reminder to everyone who sees technology as a solution to society’s ills that it is time to draw a breath. And a stark warning that “computer says no” is often the wrong answer.

Over four nights, Virgin Media 1 is broadcasting the story of one of the greatest miscarriages in legal history. Mr Bates v The Post Office dramatically retells the scandal whereby British executives preferred to trust their faulty Fujitsu IT system rather than the evidence of hundreds of their own employees.

More than 700 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted for fraud, theft, and false accounting between 2000 and 2014.

At least four suicides are attributed within the toll of mental health issues, imprisonment, and family ruin which was a direct consequence of the investigations and the tin ears of senior management about the flaws of their “Horizon” system. 

Some 19 post office workers in the North were convicted, but the total of victims is thought to be higher. Some have not come forward because of the stigma of being accused of dishonesty. 

A public hearing in Belfast 18 months ago took evidence from witnesses who had been wrongly accused and harassed by investigators.

One Spar shop owner from Co Antrim told of the day auditors visited her store demanding she repay non-existent discrepancies of £63,000 (around €72,000) within an hour. She said that relationships with close relatives have broken down as a consequence of her experience.

 “I don’t go anywhere. I don’t do anything,” she said. “I don’t even visit my own mother and father-in-law because I feel like I let them down because I wrecked their son’s life because of what happened to me. 

I will never be the person I was before. Financially, we were ruined.

Other testimony was provided by a postmistress who was removed from her office in Co Tyrone and forced to pay a “shortfall’ of £15,000 (€17,500) which did not exist. Her family had to re-mortgage their home and were declared bankrupt. Investigators asked her whether she took the money for paramilitary organisations.

“My mental health will never be the same again. Constant tablets,” she told the tribunal.

Belatedly it has been agreed that every post office operator whose wrongful conviction has been overturned will receive £600,000 (€692,000) compensation.

Mr Bates v The Post Office is directed by James Strong, who was responsible for Broadchurch and Vigil, so there will be no shortage of dramatic impact. But the scandalous two-decades-long tale of mismanagement and corporate arrogance serves to underline two truisms: Truth is stranger than fiction, and tech is far from infallible.

In an era where all the talk is of linking databases, of checks being run automatically by artificial intelligence and of the increasing use of facial recognition technology, that last thought should be kept permanently in mind.

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Farewell to the great dissenter

In journalism schools around the world, and on the CVs of aspiring reporters, you will often see an aspiration spelled out in four words. The job, many say, is about “speaking truth to power”.

While that aphorism can often seem glib, and dulled by repetition, there are journalists who achieve it, both in Ireland and overseas.

There are names of a certain generation which carry a mythic quality. Bernstein and Woodward in Washington; Neil Sheehan of Pentagon Papers fame; the photojournalist Don McCullin of Vietnam and many other theatres of war.

And to that roll call of honour can be added the doughty campaigning journalist John Pilger, who has died at his long-time home in London aged 84.

Pilger was, like Sheehan, of Irish heritage. He was raised in Australia before moving to England, where he worked for the Daily Mirror in its pre-Maxwell days of greatness, the groundbreaking investigative TV programme World in Action, and Reuters. He was twice named journalist of the year; covered conflicts in Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Biafra and created more than 50 documentary films.

As far as the powerful were concerned, Pilger was not only a member of the awkward squad, he could rightly be described as its editor-in-chief. He wasn’t allowed on board to cover the Falklands War because the British government was said to believe, probably correctly, that his powerful rhetoric would sap public support.

Other targets for his criticism were the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; the architects of US and UK foreign policy; the Australian government for its attitude towards its indigenous population; Indonesia for its brutal occupation of East Timor and, prophetically in 2002, Israel, for what Pilger called its “historic injustice” towards the Palestinian people.

Pilger, who began his career as a copy boy on the Sydney Sun, was a major supporter of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange His last film, The Dirty War on the National Health Service in 2019, scrutinised the threat to the NHS from privatisation and bureaucrats.

With his passing we lose one of the great dissenting voices of the past 50 years and an ineluctable link between the causes of the 20th century, and the dire effects of many poor decisions now being felt in the 21st.

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Dear readers...

At this time of year, it behoves all editors and journalists to remember, and give thanks for, those who, for myriad reasons, are the most important people in our professional lives.

That’s you, dear readers, and the start of a new year is a good moment to thank you for all the support you have provided for independent Irish journalism in the past 12 months, coupled to the hope that you will continue to favour us with your time, attention, and feedback in 2024. 

There will, without a doubt, be much to report and comment upon in the days ahead and our pledge is to deliver accurate and reliable information in as timely a manner as possible. In the 311 publications of 2023, we have provided you with upwards of 25m words and many thousands of images. In addition, more and more people now enjoy the digital services of our newspaper whenever and wherever they want.

Whether you are reading this anywhere in Ireland, or in overseas climes, the Irish Examiner wishes you all the very best for you and yours in the year to come. Thank you for spending time with us.