Jo Hamilton 'Continues to Fight' as Post Office Scandal Inquiry Resumes

It's the real Mr Bates versus the Post Office today as Justice campaigner and former deputy

post

master Alan Bates takes the stand in the penultimate phase of the Horizon it

inquiry

, which saw hundreds of sub

post

masters have their lives ruined by accusations of theft and false accounting, including Joe Hamilton. whose shocking story and relentless

fight

for justice formed an important part of ITV's successful dramatization of the

scandal

. uh, we all remember that

scandal

. uh we all remember that show and it caught the attention of a lot of people who didn't know about the scandal and Joe, I'm happy to tell you, as you can see, joining us now, where are you now on your journey to

fight

for justice and The compensation?

Well, I've come to the end of my financial journey as of January 26th of this year, um and I. I fell short for family reasons because my dad is older and he was a cop, but I have to fight for everyone else because of the fantastic drama. I have a platform and I have to use it to pressure me to get Justice. for good Financial repair for all my colleagues, so you've reached the point where you've at least had enough money to pay your mortgage, so you can know how to spend time with your husband who is not well and enjoy it. time, but it took three years to get there, yes, and there are many others who are not in your stage, yes, I mean, they are starting to come out now, but you know, being debt free is one of the most amazing feelings that I've ever had and I just need all my friends to be in the same position as me.

I mean, I'm not rich but I'm debt-free and to me that's what life is all about the first time you do it. If you are free of that, it is interesting because, in your case, you had the opportunity. I think if you had wanted to accept a £600,000 settlement but you said no, I'm going to fight the details of that because when you think about what you went through knowing the loss of your income the condemnation um two mortgages having to take jobs part time cleaning community support and when the mediation occurred the detailed investigation they said that actually for you 600,000 was not enough to give you fair direction, well yes, mine started so long ago that the 600,000 was not even there, we had agreed on mine and then that came out, um, it's not much more than that, but you know, it paid off my debt, but yeah, the 600,000 will be.

It suits some people who maybe lost a little less, but there will be people who lost a lot more. This is compensation for many gains, perhaps over years and years. £100,000 of my claim was actually my own money that was being returned to me. because with all the money I gave them and the interest on you trying to make up the shortfall, yes, all the interest I paid and it all came to over £100,000, which you know when they say they give you £600,000 £100,000 of that was like my money, yeah, of course, so yeah, can I ask you about the question that we were debating with Andrew and Kevin earlier?

This new phase of the investigation is about who is really to blame and who decided to cover this up. Who knew the system was flawed, um, that or that, Fitsu could get involved, go in and change the systems and decided not to tell anyone and instead blame the post

office

, um, postmasters and lovers, yeah , to pursue all those convictions, that is what will be investigated. in this new phase, yes, and they are the senior executives of the post

office

, they are the senior executives of Fujitsu, were there senior public officials? Do you think because you've been so close to this for so many years?

Where do you think it's really rotten? It happened, I mean, if I'm honest, I think the government has a role to play in this. I think public officials must have known at some point, I mean the position, that eventually they have oversight and they have allowed everything to be buried and literally in the high court you know why that happened. It cost over 1 million when everyone knew that we are now seeing documents being leaked that show that everyone knew that you know Ed Davy who is now the leader of the Lib Dems. He was post office minister at the time, he says that when he was post office minister 10 years ago or a little bit more, the post office lied to him and his officials were lied to and therefore they didn't know what was going on.

The top executives at Fij Jitsu or the post office, well, they'd say that, wouldn't they, wouldn't they, you know that, and I think if you're paid to do a job, you just ask if everything's okay and they'll say, oh, it's all good, actually you should do it. that shouldn't be like that, you should actually find out, especially when the same thing keeps coming up again and again. I mean, we've been knocking on doors since 2012 2012, you know, because James Al didn't get on my MP in time and he never gave up, you know, and he was shouting at Westminster decades ago, um, and you know, you think if someone like him was still shouting, people would have heard him, there must be something in this, we should investigate, I guess the question is for civil servants or for ministers, whether they just weren't persecuted and they didn't persecute him enough or really They know it and decide to hide it, we will find out, right?

What do you think? I think someone must have hidden it. something at some point you know and then someone else looked and thought Oh, we better hide it because they shouldn't have done it, you know, and then the mistake compounds, yeah, so Alan Bates goes to Court for the first time today. obviously you met him once or twice with him last night yeah very close activists together um are you going today? Actually, you're not part of this court no, no, I participated, I gave evidence, um, I can't even remember about three years. It's now, yes, the beginning, wasn't it?

Yes, or two years, so what, when they were. So you're going to go to How does he feel about it? This is the first time you had dinner together last night, what? did you talk about he was talking about this is he what you know he's so stoic nothing puts him in phase he literally climbs over whatever you put in front of him um he he just yeah it's a means to an end it's another phase and I think he him I'll have the opportunity to say some things that I may not have been able to say before. um, you know, we'll find out, yeah, we will.

Did he give you a clue as to what he might say? No, he said, I can't. I'm telling you God, we're all going to be seeing even more, right? And how do you feel about it now? Because through all this and a terrible injustice, there is also your own life, you know, your family, your friends have the difficult times it has been to fight and the last three years to get your money have given you some sense of closure, some sense of release. I can't, I can't stop until everyone gets paid, you know? Once the group, group G is paid, then the responsibility and everything can follow and just you know, Justice, the end of legal justice can follow the journey, but once everyone is paid, I will consider that The work is done, it must be done.

It must be like that, I mean, strange for you that there you were like Allan um sub poost mistress sub postm um getting to a stage in life where you would be thinking about um you know how you're going to plan your retirement and um and then, of Suddenly, there is a terrible scandal and you end up being national figures, champions of many other accomplished media artists on Good Morning Britain. I mean, this is the second time we've had this conversation. Was this what you expected to happen in your life? no, I had this little shop in Hampshire in the leafy Village and you know everyone loved me and you know that was my vehicle for retirement, we really expected to be there until about or I expected to be there until I was 70 and He would have just joined in and there would have been out of the gardens, but it wasn't, but you have to accept whatever life throws at you and move on.

What do you think of the post office now? necessarily the big bosses, but that idea of ​​the post office, do you still fight for small post offices or do you now feel that everything is a disaster? Well, I still use little post offices because they're like me, you know, they were like me. They have their businesses, they have invested in their businesses, but I think the brand is damaged beyond repair. I think so, it would be wonderful to see someone take over everything and run it as something else and negotiate a proper contract because postmasters are not paid anything, they really are, the salary they receive or their remuneration is horrible and there are such a vital part of life for so many people.

The Village goes, doesn't it? It literally kept the shop running, yes, but it's also the Royal Male, yes, Royal Male, they're not part of that and we know that, you know, Her Majesty, the former Queen, is deeply attached to her role as that figure decorative. I mean, you know it's terrible for a brand to be so damaged. I wonder if it might be something Monarch has to have an opinion on, maybe the king needs to tell us what should happen next, yeah, ask, brush it. Go and ask King Charles, I'm sure he'll talk to you now, look at him.

Let me give you the statement from the Post Office, a spokesperson told us that they are deeply sorry for the pain that so many people, their families and friends have suffered during the Horizon it scandal that they are working on. say as quickly as you can to pay the address with offers of over 179 million made to around 2,800 postmasters to date. What do you think about that? They like to put out figures and it's like the figures are quite misleading, but yes and The spokesperson for the Department of Business and Trade has also said that they are committed to writing the wrong pass and have introduced legislation to quash all convictions based on Horizon Ence wrong with the goal of achieving Royal Ascent in July so that nothing can compensate.

What the postmasters have gone through through this legislation will clear their names and ensure compensation payments from FasTrack, which presumably you would appreciate when we spoke to the minister a few weeks ago, he said we are doing this as quickly as possible, it is the feeling between you. and the group that the government is now moving quickly or are still dragging their feet. I think they are trying to introduce this legislation but the fact is that the group that took them to court are still not paid, some people have accepted lump sum compensation but there are still 400 of them that have not been settled and they are making it so complicated, why can't they just sit around a table and discuss an amount?

It has to be everything, it has to be paperwork, it has to be presented and it all then goes back to the same people who must have put so much thought into proving their situation. Well, look, we'll all be watching when He takes us down. I know you'll be there watching and supporting, but thank you so much for talking to us, thank you for coming back tomorrow, thank you for everything you've done too.