OPINION
Mr Bates vs The Post Office has been labelled the greatest miscarriage of justice in British legal history. Hundreds of innocent Sub-Post Masters were wrongly accused of theft, fraud, and false accounting due to a defective state-owned IT system.
The four-part British television drama series was screened on ITV (UK) from 4 Jan 2024 and repeated in two parts in New Zealand recently. It captured our imagination. We were aghast at the David and Goliath story, and the lengths corporate management will go to protect their own.
Even when faced with scores of Post Masters ringing up the Helpline about the same issues, the CEO and Helpline ignored the employees, saying they were the only ones with a problem and reiterating their new IT system, Horizon, was robust and there was nothing wrong with it.
One of the shocking realities for TV audiences in 2024, is the realisation that there are many parallels in the British scandal, to the COVID- 19 criminality fiasco in New Zealand and elsewhere.
The parallels are:
- people were not listened to
- people were not believed
- people were ostracised
- communities were divided
- families were divided
- people were repeatedly lied to
- the biggest lie which was told to everyone was that they were the only ones, or in the case of COVID mandates and vaccine injuries, there were only a few
- there were discrepancies in the information given
- people became isolated
- people thought it was their fault
- those in power were wealthy with high incomes
- people lost their jobs and sources of income
- people lost their homes
- people had to sell up and move to a cheaper area
- people were arrested
- people went to prison
- people were bankrupted
- people were in a dilemma
- people had to refuse to sign documents or falsify them to survive
- people became mentally unwell, and some had nervous breakdowns
- people could not understand what was going on
- marriages and relationships broke down
- some committed suicide and some others died
- people were paid off and kept quiet under non-disclosure orders
- people agreed to plea bargaining and gave in
- people regretted giving in under duress
- the bureaucrats and politicians advertised themselves as superior to the workers i.e. the single source of truth
- whistleblowers eventually revealed themselves
- people expressed huge relief when they finally met up with others who had been through the same experience
- people waited years for any recognition they were innocent and getting at least a measure of justice
- those in charge were protected from scrutiny
- the perpetrators did not face any penalties
- the Post Office CEO and the NZ PM were even given honours.
The one good thing that made a difference, even though it took a long time, was that not everyone believed the lies. In both the UK scandal and the NZ COVID-19 response, there were some who, despite being under excruciating pressure, managed to analyse what was going on. They are now recognised as important Critical Thinkers. Mr Bates in the UK and Libby, Claire and Alia of NZ Voices for Freedom, Kirsten Murfitt, NZDSOS, Cam Slater, and Juana Atkins, editor of the popular BFD media site, and others did not allow themselves to be sucked in, censured or silenced. They never gave up fighting for the truth. Even against enormous pressure from the likes of powerful Ardern, Bloomfield, Doctors, Police, the mainstream media, and all MPs at the time, they held their nerve. They listened, they scrutinised, and researched what was being promulgated. As the biblical parable says, they separated the wheat from the chaff.
More Kiwis began to take notice of the VFF and the BFD, counteracting the nonsense. In time, Reality Check Radio was started and became a wonderful source of truth in a biased and lying media landscape. Mr Bates gathered other post office workers who had been falsely accused of stealing, enough to begin a class action against the once ‘trusted’ Post Office.
Similarly, as Steve Bannon wrote in a preface for book, The Covid Conspiracy: The Globalist Takeover and the Great Reset (2021), regarding author Thierry Baudet,
he had the rarest of all qualities – courage combined with gravitas.
Bannon goes on to say regarding the topic of the book.
It’s a debate that must always go back to ‘The Science” – the evidence, the data – what was presented, what was held back, what was fudged, and what was dismissed?
All the critical thinkers around the world displayed and lived, courage combined with gravitas.
Mr Bates vs The Post Office, as cruel and huge as it is, may not continue to be the biggest miscarriage of justice. The worldwide financial corruption, lockdowns, lies, mandates, and the grave medical misadventure of jabbing billions with an unsafe and ineffective vaccine – the COVID-19 pandemic may end up topping the Post Office scandal.
The COVID-19 pandemic may end up being the most damning injustice yet.