When art not only imitates, but impacts life as we know it

When the famous clock of Big Ben ticked towards midnight on New Year’s Eve, and a flurry of fireworks and drones were primed to light up London’s night sky, few could have foreseen the righteous rage lying in wait for the Post Office elite.

Since New Year’s Day, a series of seismic developments have broken new ground in the Horizon IT scandal, many of which can be traced back to an ITV docudrama that quietly debuted on January 1.

Whispers surrounding Mr Bates vs the Post Office, which traces the real-life story of postmaster Alan Bates and his relentless crusade for justice, only grew louder with each episode of its four-part run. To the extent that, not two weeks later and the UK Government had introduced rapid legislation to exonerate and pay compensation to the more than 700 UK sub-postmasters wrongly accused of fraud and theft between 1999 and 2015.

That was on January 10. By which point former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells had already returned her CBE after a petition calling on her to do so had amassed more than 1.2 million signatures.

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For the victims swept up in the scandal, those who had endured years upon years of frustration and false dawns, ITV’s docudrama was the catalyst to reignite public interest which culminated to lace the rickety wheels of justice with rocket fuel and send them hurtling towards a resolution.

The public inquiry into Horizon is ongoing, the Metropolitan Police are four years into an investigation, and several former postmasters - including those in Northern Ireland - are still awaiting compensation for the injustice and subsequent ordeal.

But if ever there was a clear demonstration of the value of the arts in recent times, it’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office.

Here is an eye-opening TV drama that activated empathy across the country and indeed around the world. That started conversations and moved hearts and minds on a slow-burning news story that had been in the public eye for some 25 years. The vast reversal we’ve seen unfold over the past number of weeks is something to behold.

What would normally be the result of a court verdict bloated by delays for appealing and ministerial heel-dragging, has been fast-tracked with such pace that one could consider Mr Bates vs the Post Office to be one of the most socially effective shows ever to grace the small screen.

It rightly brought Fujitsu, manufacturers of the Horizon system, into the cold light of day. The Japanese tech giant had until this year largely stayed silent, so much so that the country’s mainstream media only reported on the scandal last week.

While a former Fujitsu president asked, “what’s Horizon?” when interviewed by the BBC in 2022. Crisis communications that is all crisis and no communication.

Now Fujitsu has broken that silence, providing evidence before the Business and Trade Committee and agreeing to pay compensation to those affected which it now believes to be a “moral obligation.” Accountability at long last, though only when the hand was forced.

That it took a TV drama to trigger meaningful action for the scores of victims, however, speaks on some level to the complexities of the scandal. The stonewalling, the legal battles, the very real human consequences. How something so intangible as faulty accounting software could bring about such ruination to individuals long considered to be pillars of their communities.

On another level, it speaks to the power of dramatisation. Had Mr Bates vs the Post Office been packaged up as a multi-part documentary, would it have triggered the same impact? Unlikely, according to show writer and producer Gwyneth Hughes.

With a career spanning five decades as a journalist and documentary maker, Hughes is uniquely placed to determine the power of drama when recollecting past events. In essence, it’s about thrusting the viewer into the heart of the story so that, rather than being a passive observer, we instead think: ‘that could have been me!’.

There is brilliance in the writing, too. To synthesise a complex case spanning decades through character performances and a mild-mannered leader in Alan Bates is quite the feat, all without relying on reams of text to hammer home the point.

Mr Bates vs The Post Office lets you absorb its harrowing tale all without seeming to be lectured at. Using fiction to find the truth. It’s art that not only imitates, but impacts life as know it.

:: Claire Aiken is managing director at Aiken PR