They tried to silénce and discredit me for 23 years

Bates tells inquiry he phoned helpline 507 times

- SOPHIE HUSKISSON & LIZZY BUCHAN

Called ‘unmanageable’ & sacked with no reason

CAMPAIGN hero Alan Bates has accused the Post Office of spending 23 years trying to discredit and silence him as he fought for justice for subpostmasters.

In his long-awaited testimony to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, the former subpostmaster said the Post Office had sacked him in 2003 because he refused to be silenced.

Alan said: “I have spent the last 23 years campaigning to expose the truth, and get justice, not just for myself, but for the entire group of wrongly treated and wrongly convicted subpostmasters.

“Post Office Limited has spent this entire period denying, lying, defending, and attempting to discredit and silence me.”

Alan, who became a household name after actor Toby Jones played him in the ITV drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, said: “They didn’t like me standing up to them.”

He branded the Post Office “an atrocious organisation”, and said its bosses were “thugs in suits”.

Giving evidence as the current Post Office chief executive Nick Read looked on, he said: “The whole postal service is a dead duck and needs to be sold... to someone like Amazon.

“It needs disbanding and building up again from the ground floor.”

More than 900 subpostmasters were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 as Fujitsu’s flawed Horizon IT system made it appear as though money was missing at their branches.

Alan, 69, told the inquiry he had concerns about Horizon as early as 2000, when his accounts showed an unexplained £6000 shortfall.