David Knight: Post Office well on its way to becoming the ‘Past Office’ after damaging scandal

I had to drag myself away from Fargo to watch Mr Bates vs The Post Office on television – no mean feat, as I’m hooked on the fifth season of mayhem in Minnesota.

It’s full of humiliation, intimidation, incarceration and ruination. Yes – it sounds like the Post Office scandal. Except that makes Fargo look tame by comparison.

The Post Office ended up like a cross between AI gone mad and a sci-fi dystopia where the robots had taken over.

A couple of quotes stuck in my mind while watching the sickening tale unfold in a documentary companion to the drama series.

The “wicked witch” of this chilling pantomime, former chief executive Paula Vennells, appeared in a Post Office promotional clip. She proclaimed – with apparent sincerity – that “subpostmasters are first and foremost in everything we do”.

Yes, helpless subpostmasters were “first and foremost” – to be picked off like human sacrifices.

In his civil judgment in favour of the 500 subpostmasters who brought a group claim, Lord Fraser memorably said that the Post Office case was like a “21st century version of saying the world is flat”.

Someone referred to the Post Office’s past persona as warm and cosy – until it metamorphosed into a monster. Past benevolence rang a bell, as I remembered myself as a boy buying Post Office savings stamps from a nice woman behind the counter.

Now, I thought about another female postmaster: one of the victims who recounted her terrible ordeal and subsequent disintegrating health. I couldn’t wipe her sad face and haunted eyes from my memory.

She witnessed £11,000 in stamps disappear from her branch accounts overnight due to the rogue computer system. It led to a horrifying sequence of events, including electroconvulsive shocks to her brain in hospital; she still hasn’t recovered from her ordeal.

Allegations emerged of evidence being withheld that would have cleared victims, false statements in court, and forcing them to “repay” thousands they didn’t owe in the first place.

A serious rebrand and reduction of power seems inevitable

How can the Post Office survive in its current form without being consigned to the bin of corporate failures as the “Past Office”? A serious rebrand and reduction of power seems inevitable.

I’m thinking of cancelling my Post Office cash travel card in protest.

Let’s also think of more than 70 victims in Scotland. The Post Office Horizon public inquiry is scheduled next week to focus on how Scottish cases were investigated, including the case of North Uist subpostmaster William Quarm, whose wife was quoted as saying he died “a broken man” after his wrongful conviction.

Every drama requires a villain, and Vennells is an intriguing character. Ironically, while rising to the top in the commercial world, she qualified as an Anglican priest.

I believe she used to sit on the Church of England’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group, which tells its financial decision-makers how to engage with businesses. I leafed through their policy document.

It talked about seeking “heaven on earth” by only dealing with companies which helped humans flourish. It’s odd how this milk of human kindness didn’t spill over towards her postmasters.

There is a stench of Establishment privilege and hypocrisy around Vennells; we are familiar with other recent scandals hanging over Westminster and Holyrood, too.

Vennells ran into a reincarnation of David and Goliath when heroic Alan Bates struck with his own slingshots.

Time for politicians to protect public from the Establishment

If King Charles watched the drama while enjoying his post-Christmas break at Balmoral, he might have winced. Especially when one of the victims – forced to pay back £36,000 she didn’t owe – saw a court notice as she arrived for her case.

As with all these notices setting out court business, it began with: “The Queen Against…” and inserted the name of whichever sacrificial lamb was next. She wondered aloud what the Queen would say if she knew what was really going on.

So, is the King happy with his name potentially being used in such matters? I hope he lays it on the line in his private audiences with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that only a speedy first-class delivery will do in putting things right for the postmasters.

A chilling and totally false Post Office mantra still haunts victims from when they were crying in vain for help. ‘You’re the only one,’ they were told

And anyone judged criminally liable for wrongful actions in enforcing Post Office investigations must also be dealt with swiftly in court. Before time dims the memory – like sand covering a sunken wreck. These henchmen who do the dirty work often escape retribution.

We’ll see a lot of Sunak, Keir Starmer and Humza Yousaf wanting to be our buddies as they step briefly from their privileged world seeking election votes. Here’s a new policy for the trio: a “Little People’s Charter” to stop the Establishment from crushing ordinary citizens.

A chilling and totally false Post Office mantra still haunts victims from when they were crying in vain for help. “You’re the only one,” they were told.

Not anymore – the whole country is behind them.

David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of The Press and Journal