Post Office campaigner Alan Bates demands March deadline from Starmer for Horizon scandal payouts
19 October 2024, 20:59
Post Office campaigner Sir Alan Bates has demanded a March 2025 deadline for Horizon victims' payout from Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
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Sir Alan, who was knighted for his efforts to bring justice to subpostmasters wronged by the Horizon IT software, says he and hundred other victims have not been told when they will receive their compensation.
He says he wrote to the PM on October to demand that the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) completes all compensation claims by March 2025.
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More than 900 subpostmasters were wrongly accused of stealing from their branches due to the faulty Horizon accounting system between 1999 and 2015.
Sir Alan, who leads the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, is calling on the government to set a deadline of next March to pay redress to the victims.
Bates told the i: "Like many of the groups, my claim has not been completed. It’s ridiculous. I am one of just many in this position.
“This is why I wrote to the Prime Minister at the start of October, asking that he instruct the department to ensure that all claims – and I’m talking about in the GLO group, the original 555 – have been completed by March next year."
He added: “I’m led to believe that there’s no reason why it can’t be done if that instruction was given.
“But I’ve had no response from the Prime Minister yet to my letter. It might turn up on Monday.”
The compensation scheme was set up after Sir Alan, leading a group of 555 sub-postmasters, won a landmark court case at the High Court.
Of the hundreds of members of the group, 63 had criminal convictions and therefore are not eligible for this scheme but they are eligible for other compensation - depending on how their convictions are being overturned.
According to the latest government figures, 201 of the eligible 492 subpostmasters in the scheme have received their payments in full.
