Starmer talks nonsense about Post Office payments

Post Office Activist Sir Alan Bates has criticized what he called Sir Keir Starmer’s “nonsense” about slow compensation to subpostmasters as it contemplates further legal action in the New Year.

the hero former deputy postmaster wrote twice to the Prime Minister in October about the time it took for victims of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal to receive financial compensation.

He received what he called a “standard civil service” response from Starmer in November, the day he addressed MPs at a public select committee into the scandal, in which more than 900 subpostmasters were unfairly prosecuted.

Sir Alan said The paper from Starmer’s response: “It was just nonsense: ‘we’re doing everything we can, we’re working at a good pace.’

“It didn’t come until after I left the select committee. It’s curious, isn’t it? I think he was timing his second response, he must have been landing at the airport when he wrote it.

“I was going to write this month too, but I thought there was no point because I would get the same rubbish response from the public administration.”

The Justice Alliance for Subpostmasters Sir Alan leads is fighting for compensation for 555 former subpostmasters who participated in a landmark class action legal action against the Post Office.

But five years after winning an initial court battle and a year after the ITV drama. Mr Bates v the Post Office sharpened the spotlight on one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history, no deadline has been set for redress.

comes as activists who helped expose the Post Office scandal hAve said they would prefer to receive full compensation rather than recognition in the New Year’s Honors List.

Four former subpostmasters – Lee Castleton, Jo Hamilton, Seema Misra and Christopher Head – are among the 1,203 people who have been recognized by King Charles in this year’s awards.

All have been appointed Officers of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in recognition of their “services to justice”.

But of the four, only Castleton and Hamilton have so far received financial compensation under the government’s Horizon compensation schemes, launched in March. Other victims who have already received compensation offers question the amount they have been told they can claim.

Veteran campaigner Sir Alan fears it could take years for Post Office workers to receive full compensation from the Department of Business and Trade.

Betty Brown, a 91-year-old former subpostmaster and the oldest victim, was recently offered less than a third of what she had claimed in compensation, and Sir Alan was among those offered a percentage similar.

Around 70 of the 555 workers under Sir Alan’s Group Litigation Order (GLO) scheme have died, and the campaigner fears more will not live to see justice done, as a new legal battle over compensation delays brews.

“We’re thinking about something for the New Year, but we have to get a little further down the road,” Sir Alan said.

“But we have to do something. We can’t let this continue like this. If that means we will have to return to the law next year, we will have to consider it very seriously.

“They just flat out refuse to put deadlines on anything, and that’s the real big problem.”

And he added: “It is an action that we must take, it is as simple as that. That’s the only thing they understand.”

Sir Alan has called for an independent body to take control of the management of compensation claims, with four financial compensation schemes set up by the Government.

The 555 former postmasters won their group claim in 2019 with a £42.5m settlement, but their payments were absorbed after legal costs, with the GLO scheme set for them in 2022.

They have been offered £75,000, or can undergo a full appeal assessment if they believe their losses are greater, with 221 claims on the GLO plan paid as at 31 October 2024.

Sir Alan said: “There is a group of around 200, which are probably the most complex cases, some of which are being reviewed at the moment and others will have been submitted by this Christmas.

“And that’s the problem, and that’s what will cause the real problems in the future.

“Because I think my claim was on October 22 or something like that. I think it’s been working its way through the system. If you have hundreds of others with problems similar to mine, this could go on for years.

“Right now, the public administration is making everyone walk. But it is the victims who suffer.

“Honestly, it would have been better if the 500 victims ran for parliament in the last election.”

Of the 555 members of the GLO group, 63 received wrongful criminal convictions and are not eligible for this plan, but can apply for separate plans.

Mistra, 49, was jailed while pregnant after being wrongly convicted of stealing £70,000 from her Post Office branch in the Surrey village of West Byfleet.

His conviction was overturned, but he described waiting for the compensation issue to be resolved as “torture.”

“They are happy to spend on the lawyers, but then they are not willing to give it to the postmasters,” Ms Misra said.

“People are losing their lives, not just the victims, but also the lawyers, the people who fought to get justice for us. There are so many people that we are also losing them.”

The Government has previously said it is “resolving claims at a faster rate than ever”.

By the end of November, around £499 million had been paid out to more than 3,300 claimants across four schemes.

A Government spokesperson said: “We recognize the immeasurable suffering that the victims of the Horizon scandal have endured.

“We are resolving claims at a faster rate than ever to provide you with full and fair relief. We have doubled the total compensation paid since the end of June.

“We are also submitting nearly 90 percent of GLO initial offers within 40 business days of receiving complete applications.

“We encourage the 158 people who have not yet submitted complete claims to us to come forward as soon as possible so they can claim what they are owed.”