Sir Alan Bates

During the ceremony tribute was paid to Sir Alan’s research, mastery of the facts and his principled approach as he battled to expose problems with the Horizon computer system.

Sir Alan has also assisted with University of Exeter Law School research, led by Professor Richard Moorhead, into the impact of the scandal on sub-postmasters and their families. Paying tribute to Sir Alan at the ceremony Professor Moorhead talked about Sir Alan’s “keen sense of what is right and wrong” and the huge impact of his battle for more honesty in commercial and legal life.

Professor Moorhead read out views of Sir Alan he had canvassed from those who had worked from him, which included “tenacious, indomitable and relentless” and “absolutely bloody minded”.

Professor Moorhead said Sir Alan was “principled, persistent, and more than he’s given credit for, rather pragmatic” and he was one of the “men we should admire most in the world”.

He said: “I can tell you the one thing that stands out above all others. The one thing people say which helped them most. It was the moment they realised they weren’t alone. They were not thieves, they were not debtors, they were not bankrupts or failures. They had been wronged, wronged by the Post Office, and wronged, I’m sorry to say, wronged by the law, and the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, led by Alan, gave them that, the knowledge, they were not alone. They were innocent and they could fight for the truth. And how Sir Alan Bates has helped with that fight.”

Sir Alan said he “wasn’t sure” he deserved the praise directed at him, and he had accepted the honour because of the “fine work” being carried out by researchers at the University of Exeter Law School and because of his previous connections with Exeter, as well as a meeting with previous Chancellor Baroness Floella Benjamin. 

He told students they should “best honest to yourself and always hold on to the truth”.

Sir Alan said: “Much has been made about the overturning of convictions and problems with compensation. But what began these processes was exposing the truth. That was the big battle. Exposing the truth allowed us to take away control of the narrative from the Post Office who until then had been denying there was anything wrong with their systems.”

Sir Alan, who was knighted last year, was born in Liverpool in 1954 and raised in North Wales. 

He met his wife Suzanne, a language unit teacher, whilst working as Museum Services Manager for Exeter Museums.

They settled in Yorkshire as Alan joined the team setting up EUREKA, in Halifax. In 1998 Alan became a sub-postmaster in North Wales but Post Office terminated his contract after he refused to sign off balances because he believed access on the new Horizon system to check figures was limited.

Sir Alan reached out to fellow victims and anyone who could help. After a first meeting in 2009 with sufferers of a range of abuses, he formed the Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance. He brought notable people on board but Post Office were impenetrable, so Sir Alan led a successful Group Litigation court case in 2019 exposing the cover up and helping to vindicate all innocent sub postmasters and sub postmistresses.

In January 2024 this campaign was the subject of the hit TV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office.