Sir Alan Bates urges victims of Post Office scandal to take govt to court over compensation delays

Published

3 months ago

April 15, 2025

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Victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal have been urged to take legal action against the government over compensation delays.

In an email to victims seen by Sky News, Post Office campaigner Sir Alan Bates suggested it would be November 2027 before all the claims are finished based on the current rate of progress.

He told them going to court was “probably the quickest way to ensure fairness for all”.

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Hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongfully prosecuted for theft and false accounting after Fujitsu-made accounting software Horizon inaccurately generated financial shortfalls, making it appear money was missing from Post Offices across the UK.

Many other sub-postmasters were made bankrupt, suffered ill health and experienced relationship breakdowns as a result of the falsely generated shortfalls and how the Post Office, a state-owned company, responded.

‘Lawyers taking every opportunity to challenge’

Compensation claims are processed through schemes administered by the Department of Business and Trade (DBT).

Sir Alan said one scheme in particular – the group litigation order (GLO) scheme for the 555 people who successfully took legal action against the Post Office and exposed the scandal – was “a mess”.

“Advice on how to streamline and speed up the scheme which has been offered to the DBT by ourselves, your lawyers and even the DBT Select Committee is ignored out of hand with the feeblest of excuses,” he said.

The government disputed the forecast by Sir Alan that it would take until 2027 for all claims to be settled and said it was “settling claims at a faster rate than ever before”.

The problem was not unique to the GLO scheme, Sir Alan said, saying administration and application problems beset all four plans for victims impacted in different ways by the miscarriage of justice.

The majority of applicants have had “substantially undervalued offers” from the government, Sir Alan said.

“The DBT lawyers appear to be taking every opportunity to challenge figures when the DBT has already paid for your lawyers to test and verify the claims before they are submitted.

“It appears that the DBT will pay out the smaller claims of about 60 to 80% of value, but the larger, which form the bulk of the outstanding claims, are continually being fought by DBT’s lawyers.”

More information is regularly sought from the victim, which Sir Alan said was “obviously not available” and delayed compensation offers.

“They also seem to be reducing offers by 50% where a spouse is involved, and it seems they will use almost any other tactic to ensure that the DBT does not have to pay out what has already been verified before the claim was submitted.”

Citing figures from the department, Sir Alan’s email said 66 cases had been fully settled in the last six months, with 210 yet to be settled.

The ‘quickest way to fairness’

Sir Alan suggested legal action was the “quickest way to ensure fairness for all”, though he acknowledged that “returning to the courts may seem to be a long haul”.

“There may be other options but the one which is repeatedly mentioned is a judicial review, not just for the GLO Scheme but to include all of the schemes to ensure there is parity in the way victims have, and are, being treated,” the email said.

A new legal action may be appropriate for people who have accepted offers, Sir Alan said, “a new legal action may well be a way of having your claim reassessed once more, this time by the courts”.

Victims from each scheme would need to come forward to move the campaign on, Sir Alan said, as he urged people to “step up”.

A national fundraising campaign may be needed to cover the costs of this action, the email added, which Sir Alan said he may be able to help set up.

The government had said in October 2023 it was “determined to deliver” the GLO scheme by August 2024 and last year rejected a March 2025 deadline sought by campaigners for all payments to be finalised.

“We will be able to get substantial redress paid out to those individuals by the end of March”, Post Office minister Gareth Thomas told the Commons in December.

Government ‘does not accept forecast’

Responding to Sir Alan’s suggestion it would take until 2027 to settle all claims, a government spokesperson said, “we do not accept this forecast”.

“The facts show we are making almost 90% of initial GLO offers within 40 working days of receiving completed claims. As of 31 March, 76% of the group had received full and final redress, or 80% of their offer.”

“So long as claimants respond reasonably promptly, we would expect to settle all claims by the end of this year.

“We have trebled the number of payments under this government and are settling claims at a faster rate than ever before to provide full and fair redress.”

UK

Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Published

2 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Liverpool players past and present have joined the family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva for their funeral in Portugal.

A service was held in the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in their hometown of Gondomar near Porto in northern Portugal on Saturday morning.

Mourners lined the streets and some in the crowd clapped as the brothers’ coffins were carried into the church.

The funeral – in pictures

Jota, 28, leaves behind his wife of only 11 days, Rute Cardoso, and three young children.

His younger brother, 25, was an attacking midfielder for Penafiel in the second tier of Portuguese football.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot, captain Virgil Van Dijk and teammates including Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez were seen at the service.

Former teammates Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Fabinho were also there.

Van Dijk carried a red wreath with Jota’s number 20, while Robertson had a wreath featuring number 30, Silva’s number at Penafiel.

Some of Jota’s teammates in the Portuguese national side also attended, including Bruno Fernandes, of Manchester United, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva, of Manchester City, Joao Felix and Renato Veiga, of Chelsea, Nelson Semedo, from Wolves, Joao Moutinho and Rui Patricio.

Ruben Neves was one of the pallbearers after flying in from Florida where he played for Al Hilal in the Club World Cup quarter-final on Friday night.

‘More than a friend’

In a post published on Instagram before the service, he told Jota he had been “more than a friend, we’re family, and we won’t stop being that way just because you’ve decided to sign a contract a little further away from us!”

Jota’s fellow Liverpool midfielder, Alexis Mac Allister, said on Instagram: “I can’t believe it. I’ll always remember your smiles, your anger, your intelligence, your camaraderie, and everything that made you a person. It hurts so much; we’ll miss you. Rest in peace, dear Diogo.”

Porto FC president Andre Villas-Boas and Portugal national team manager Roberto Martinez were also in attendance.

‘With us forever’

Speaking after the ceremony, Martinez said the period since their deaths had been “really, really sad days, as you can imagine, but today we showed we are a large, close family.

“Their spirit will be with us forever.”

The service was private, but the words spoken by the Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda, were broadcast to those standing outside the church.

He told Jota’s children, who were not at the service, that he was praying for them specifically, as well as their mother and grandparents.

“There are no words, but there are feelings,” he said, adding: “We also suffer a lot and we are with you emotionally.”

The brothers died after a Lamborghini they were travelling in burst into flames following a suspected tyre blowout in the early hours of Thursday morning.

No other vehicles are said to have been involved in the incident.

Liverpool have delayed the return of their players for pre-season following Jota’s death and players past and present paid tribute to him and his brother on social media.

Flowers have been left outside Anfield, where flags have been lowered to half-mast and all club shops, museums and tours have been closed until Monday.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

5 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

UK

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva’s funeral in pictures

Published

6 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota and Andre Silva's funeral in pictures

The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.

The Liverpool forward, 28, and his brother died in a car crash in Spain on Thursday.

Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.