'Best TV drama ever' based on true story now available to watch on major streamer

Mr Bates vs The Post Office was one of the most talked-about programmes last year, launching one of the biggest miscarriages of justice the nation had ever seen back into the headlines. The drama follows the story of sub-postmaster Alan Bates (played by Toby Jones), who lost his beloved North Wales Post Office after being accused of theft.

After some investigation, he discovered that hundreds of others had also been accused of theft despite never committing such a crime. As time went on, dozens of innocent postmasters lost their homes and fell into serious debts, with more than 200 being sent to prison. Heartbreakingly, four people in the profession took their own lives.

The four-part series was eye-opening for viewers, and the Horizon IT scandal was thrust into the spotlight and became the subject of a lengthy inquiry after 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted because of false information from the computer system.

The first part of the report, released this month, revealed the full extent of the suffering of sub-post managers by being wrongly accused of false accounting and stealing money.

The show first aired on ITV, but the "outstanding" series is now available to watch on Disney+.

One person said on Google Reviews: "This is the best TV drama I have seen for years. Some names have been changed and scenes created to heighten the drama, but what makes this so effective is that it succeeds in telling the human cost to the people wrongly accused of crimes that didn't actually happen."

A second added: "This is the best show I have ever watched in my life, even better than Only Fools and Horses. Such an amazing story, outstandingly stubborn Mr Bates and whoever produced this series is in the same league as the monumental success of the real-life case. I cannot express how well this was done. Brilliant actors, just brilliant, brilliant, brilliant all round."

Another shared: "I was hooked on the dramatisation and incensed by what had happened to honest, decent, loyal people. Inexcusably, the postmasters were appallingly treated by an entire system of largely faceless individuals over a decade!"

Someone else remarked: "The first episode was absolutely gripping from the start and is an indictment of some of the most disgraceful behaviour seen in corporate Britain ever. Subsequent episodes were of similar high quality, and all involved in telling the story are to be congratulated. It is one of the most important accounts of the disgusting behaviour of people with too much power and too little accountability that there has been."

Watch Mr Bates vs The Post Office on Disney+.