History Series / MrBatesVSThePostOffice

* InterruptedSuicide: Saman Kaur attempts suicide by stabbing herself in the stomach due to the shame she feels from appearing in the local press as having stolen old people's money. Luckily her husband Jas Singh walks in on her doing so and calls an ambulance. Even when she is found Not Guilty she still experiences trauma and stress she's still hated by the community.

[[caption-width-right:350:From left to right Michael Rudkin, Pam Stubbs, Jo Hamilton, Alan Bates, Suzanne Sercombe, Jas Singh, and Lee Castleton]]

The story is mainly told from the perspective of Alan Bates (Creator/TobyJones), the founder of JFSA, and his partner Suzanne Sercombe (Creator/JulieHesmondhalgh). But with strong focus on other subpostmasters and subpostmistresses and on the investigation team.

Soon they begin a legal battle, initially with the assistance of James Arbuthnot, MP (played by Creator/AlexJennings) and the fictional Bob Rutherford (Creator/IanHart), independent investigator who represents the real forensic account firm Second Sight who were appointed by the Post Office Limited to handle the case.

On the Post Office Limited side Creator/LiaWilliams plays [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells Paula Vennells]] the former chief executive officer of Post Office Limited, Creator/KatherineKelly as Angela van den Bogerd the Post Office Limited head of partnerships and later business improvement director.

* BasedOnATrueStory: In general, but an actual on screen statement appears at the beginning of episode three, saying that the episode is based on a true story but that some names had been changed.

* TheDeterminator: It takes years before the subpostmasters see even the slightest movement towards seeing justice done. Many despair and question if its worth going on but they're always convinced to stay the course by the quiet determination of Alan Bates, who doggedly appeals to lawyers and politicians until they'll listen and take up the cause.

* DrivenToSuicide: Saman Kaur attempts to take her life due to her own sense of shame and hate being directed at her by the local press, but is rescued by her husband Jas. Sadly Martin Griffiths, does die by suicide a few days before his appeal meeting against his contract termination by throwing himself in front of a bus.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: The very first scene has Alan Bates blocking the Post Office's so-called investigators from entering his store, as he is still in charge until his contract ends. Then they call the police but he just explains the police officers that the Post Office has no evidence whatsoever of his alleged crimes, forcing its employees to relent and come back the following day. In just a couple of minutes, we not only see that Alan Bates is a man who knows his rights and the law and is completely unafraid of the Post Office, but also that the Post Office bosses are not actually interested in investigating what´s happening and finding the truth, they just send their men to threaten innocent people.

** There's also the chain of suspicious emails that strongly indicates Vennells knew/suspected that there ''was'' a backdoor into the Horizon computers and was trying to get her underlings to create false evidence she could use in her favour (which get used against her in court), the decision by someone at Fujitsu to try to silence a union member who saw the backdoors by using them against him (which provoked him into telling Alan and co everything he'd seen, and put them on the path to finding evidence of wrongdoing) and the Post Office demanding the judge recuse himself and accusing him of bias against them (which Alan and his lawyers laughingly agree is such a phenomenally stupid move that it was probably either ordered by a panicking board of directors or a desperate play to drag out the case longer)
* InconvenientlyVanishingExoneratingEvidence: For the first four episodes whenever the JFSA get a hold of documents through freedom of information requests or the investigation team requests access the documents are either redacted, doctored, or missing. The Fujitsu UK headquarters also "conveniently" doesn't have any record of Michael Rudkin's visit on the day he shown it's employees accessing subpostmasters ''Horizon'' accounts. Thankfully he kept his invite email.

* MiscarriageOfJustice: The subpostmasters are innocent despite the insistence of the Post Office, who terrified many of them into either taking a PleaBargain to avoid jail; or in rare cases some subpostmasters did wind up doing jail time. Eventually at least 90 of these convictions were overturned. All to protect the "Post Office" brand. The real case that the series is based on was described in the press as "the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history".

* PersecutingProsecutor: The various private prosecutors we see acting on the Post Office's behalf are never given much characterisation, but (unless they're totally ignorant of the law and the cases they're presenting) they MUST know that the evidence against the people they're prosecuting is extremely flimsy, and that they're only offering plea bargains because they wouldn't stand a chance in court.

* ProperlyParanoid: Alan Bates in particular, but also Lee Castleton who both kept paper records of their actual accounts and noticed their discrepancies despite Post Office Limited and the in some cases the courts insisting otherwise.

* SinisterMinister: Paula Vennells is a variation. We are reminded a few times that she is also a Church of England minister, but there is no indication that she is corrupt or incompetent in that role; all her wrongdoings are of the corporate, legal and political variety, and her being a woman of the cloth doesn't really serve any plot point beyond making her hypocrisy more odious.

--> Twenty years after he lost his own post office, Alan Bates is still fighting for compensation for hundreds of other victims.\\

The Court of Appeal has so far overturned 93 wrongful convictions. And the Public Inquiry the Alan called for in 2009 is now underway.\\

No current or former Post Office manager has faced a criminal charge.

* InterruptedSuicide: Saman Kaur attempts suicide by stabbing herself in the stomach due to the shame she feels from appearing in the local press has having stolen old people's money. Luckily her husband Jas Singh walks in on her doing so and calls an ambulance. Even when she is found Not Guilty she still experiences trauma and stress she's still hated by the community.