02 March 2024 , 20:49
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Post Office scandal victim Jo Bates was one of the surprise hosts at tonight's BRIT Awards as she presented RAYE with the opening gong of the night with the actress, Monica Dolan, who played her in the hit ITV drama Mr Bates v The Post Office.
Jo received a huge round of applause as she thanked the British public for their support as she called on the government to pay the sub-postmasters caught up in the scandal the compensation they're owed.
The ITV series followed the true story of mysterious financial losses appearing in village post office tills. The four-parter documents a new computer system called Horizon being installed across the country. It saw numerous postmasters wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 for fraud, theft and false accounting.
As the title suggests, it follows the story of Alan Bates, who along with his partner Suzanne Sercombe in 1998, used life savings to buy a Post Office branch in Llandudno, North Wales. But it was not just the couple who were impacted by what happened, and Jo Hamilton was one of the many subpostmistresses who was also wrongly accused amid the scandal.
Thankfully, she later had her conviction quashed, but the ordeal left the 68-year-old, who ran a village shop in South Warnborough, Hampshire, in a dark place. She begun working at her branch back in 2001, and two years later the problems started thanks to the Horizon system. When shortfalls on her account started the show, she started paying the money back from her own pocket.
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Remortgaged her house twice and ending up in a lot of debt, she was fired when, in 2006, £10,000 was missing. Eventually, she was charged with theft of more than £36,000 and appeared in court two years later. There, she she accepted a lesser charge of false accounting. She wouldn't go to prison if she paid all the money back.
In 2009 she met Alan Bates at a meeting of postmasters and mistresses fighting for justice and they started the fight to clear their name. Her story is brought to life by former Sightseers, Alan Partridge and Empire of Light star Monica Dolan. She said meeting the wronged Jo Hamilton helped her get a far greater understanding.
"She's extremely warm. I think she was one of the few that did set visits, and by the time it came to lunch and I was chatting to her, she had talked to absolutely everyone. She's very gregarious and a great animal lover, the sort of person you feel really safe with," the actress said.
"Talking to her now, there's something about her that doesn't seem to have changed: she's still got a really, really positive outlook. Somehow, she still sees the best in people. I was very, very lucky with Jo because she was extremely approachable from very early on. It was just basic things like, 'What colour was your hair at this point?' and I could just get in touch with her right away and get loads of photos back.
"I remember there was a point where I thought 'This is quite delicate. She might not want to do it, but I'll just ask…' And I asked her if she wouldn't mind making me an audio recording of her life story up to the point where we meet her in the script. That was extremely useful and I played it in the car on the way to set every day.
"It not only gave me her life story, but it gave me her voice, so I could practise her accent. People go, 'Playing real people… it must be more difficult.' But actually, if they're alive, you've got them to ask. And if they're not alive, you've possibly got them to read about or see footage of. You can look at their body language, see what they were interested in, see how they might behave in private."