Sir Alan Bates slams ‘nonsense’ reported about his financial redress settlement

Sir Alan Bates says he got “nowhere near” the amount in compensation that has been quoted in the national media, as the Post Office scandal campaigner sets the record straight.

Bates, who has fought the Post Office for a quarter of a century after it wrongly took away the business he and his wife had invested their savings in, told Computer Weekly the amount he received was nowhere near the amount quoted by the national press.

In November 2025, when he settled with the Post Office, Bates revealed it was only 49.2% of his claim, but it was reported that he probably received between £4m and £5m, from a claim of about £10m.

This figure was repeated, but Bates says it was way off the mark.

“None of the figures they mentioned relate in any way to anything my claim went in for,” he told Computer Weekly. “It is nowhere near what they say. They were just made-up figures and they were nonsense.”

Bates, who said the misreporting has made him reluctant to speak to the press, said he wanted to set the record straight.

He and his wife, Lady Suzanne Bates, ran a branch in Craig Y Don in North Wales, but in 2003, Bates had his subpostmaster contract terminated with no reason after he refused to cover unexplained shortfalls he suspected at the time were caused by Horizon errors.

In 2004, on the advice of a friend, Bates contacted Computer Weekly by letter. Then, in 2008, after being contacted by another subpostmaster, Lee Castleton, Computer Weekly had enough material to continue to investigate. The following year, an article was published about the plight of subpostmasters that had suffered at the hands of Horizon. Bates was one of seven subpostmasters featured, but there were many more.

After Computer Weekly’s landmark investigation was published in 2009, more subpostmasters and former subpostmasters came forward. Bates set up the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA), and the subpostmasters began their fight with the Post Office and government.

As is now widely known, the JFSA took the Post Office to the High Court in 2018 and won. This led to the overturning of wrongful convictions of subpostmasters for theft and fraud and eventually a statutory public inquiry. An ITV dramatisation of Bates’s battle in January 2024 finally awakened the wider public to the scandal.

Bates was awarded a knighthood in June 2024. This came 18 months after he rejected an offer of an OBE, as Computer Weekly revealed. At the time, he said he would not take an honour while Paula Vennells, the former Post Office CEO, held one.

In February 2024, Vennells lost her CBE for services to the Post Office, which she received in 2019.

Separately, Bates this week completed his application for financial redress for unexplained losses while he used the faulty Post Office Capture system, which was also the cause of unexplained shortfalls subpostmasters were blamed for.

Computer Weekly first exposed the scandal in 2009, with the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered as a result of the Horizon system (see timeline below.)