‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’: The U.K. Drama That Changed British Legal History Comes to Masterpiece on PBS
variety.comScott Bryan There is a moment in “Mr Bates vs. the Post Office” that makes you as a viewer go “it cannot be real” — only for you then to remind yourself that what you are watching is a true story.
Subpostmaster Jo Hamilton (Monica Dolan) — a small business owner who deals with the services and finances of their Post Office — finds that there is an accounting financial discrepancy in her computer of around £2,000 ($2,523).
She cannot make sense of how the system came up with such a figure, so she rings a work helpline in a state of alarm. She follows the helpline’s instructions, thinking that the figure will go down to zero, but then, unexpectedly, the apparent discrepancy doubles to £4,100 right in front of her eyes.
Unconscionably, even though it is clear to viewers that this error is caused by the IT Horizon system running her Post Office account, the helpline caller doesn’t help her solve the problem.
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