What happened in the Post Office scandal after emotional Britain’s Got Talent audition

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Britain’s Got Talent judges and viewers at home were left teary-eyed after a choir affected by the Post Office delivered an emotional performance.

During this weekend’s episode, judges Bruno Tonioli, Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, and Alesha Dixon saw Hear Our Voice take to the stage, with choir leader Tim revealing to Simon that they were all directly impacted by the controversy surrounding the national organisation.

‘We only met up when we were going through terrible times, and we wanted to put something together that gave us some joy,’ Tim said.

Commenting on the scandal, music mogul Simon, 65, said: ‘What happened I think was just shocking and I really hope that you win this battle because it was disgusting how you were all treated—I mean, seriously, disgusting.’

Fellow choir member Jess added: ‘We’re just a very big family that have got together to let our voices out and let the world know that we’re all going to get through this fight.’

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‘What happened I think was just shocking and I really hope that you win this battle,’ said Simon Cowell (Picture: ITV) The choir involved those affected by the Post Office scandal (Picture: ITV)

After the performance, Simon declared the choir was ‘going to win’ and that the ‘public is behind them.’

And he was certainly right about that as fans couldn’t stop praising the heartwarming performance online.

@SPTattooLady shared on Twitter/X: ‘The Post Office Choir have got me in tears.’

@CharlieFarnsba9 added: ‘I don’t normally pay much attention to #BGT but this act by the Post Office Submasters is fantastic, what an incredible audition.’

@DannyDenay gushed: ‘Holy s**t they’re good! Really really good! Which makes voting for them a lot easier because this Post Office scandal choir is definitely going to win #BGT this year!’

SHANEOfficial penned: ‘The Post Office scandal needs to be shouted about from the rooftops forever. The injustice was just horrible. This was a beautiful message.’

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The Post Office scandal occurred between 1999 and 2015 when criminal prosecutions were brought forward against hundreds of subpostmasters.

All of them had been using the Horizon accounting system, which reported that money was missing from their post offices.

Employees complained about bugs in the system early on after shortfalls appeared, with thousands of pounds seemingly unaccounted for. However, these concerns were dismissed.

What happened in the Post Office scandal?

After shortfalls were noted, the Post Office obliged subpostmasters to ‘repay’ the money themselves.

Many were wrongfully convicted of offences including theft, fraud, and false accounting.

Mr Bates vs The Post Office told the shocking true story of the Horizon scandal (Picture: ITV)

Some were suspended from their jobs or dismissed completely, while others were made bankrupt and even imprisoned.

On a wider scale, some lost their homes and many suffered mental or physical health problems as a result of the way they were treated and the financial hardship it caused.

Personally, families and relationships broke down, local communities turned their backs on some, and several tragically took their own lives.

In March 2017, a group of 555 people took the Post Office to the High Court after joining forces against the wrongful charges.

What is the Post Office scandal latest?

In April 2021, 39 subpostmasters had their convictions overturned.

More were later overturned, taking the total to 102.

Toby Jones starred as Alan Bates in the NTA-winning programme (Picture: ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

The government also announced a judicial inquiry, which was upgraded to a statutory inquiry in June 2021.

On January 10 last year, the Prime Minister announced the introduction of new legislation to ensure those convicted would have their convictions quashed and compensated.

As of last March, £179million has been paid to approximately 2,800 claimants across three different schemes: 

Also last year, ITV released what would become an award-winning drama titled Mr Bates vs The Post Office, chronicling the injustices and the Post Office employees’ fight to have their names cleared.

The drama starred the likes of Will Mellor, Toby Jones, and Monica Dolan and truly took the country by storm, launching one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in UK history back into the spotlight.

Public outrage caused by the programme helped to put the Horizon scandal under the spotlight.

Kevin Lygo, the managing director of media and entertainment at ITV, told the Voice of the Listener & Viewer (VLV) spring conference on Wednesday: ‘Mr Bates has made a loss of something like a million pounds, and we can’t continually do this.

Will Mellor was also among the starry cast (Picture: ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

‘Of course, some things are very profitable on the channel, and some things aren’t.

‘But it’s a challenge to be able to fund some of the things that aren’t, obviously, of international appeal.

‘We’re hoping this may be because it caused such a furore here that maybe sales will pick up, but there’s no evidence of it yet.

‘If you’re in Lithuania, four hours at the British Post Office? Not really; thank you very much. So you can see the challenges here.’

Comment nowDo you think Hear Our Voice could win BGT?Comment Now

He said the challenge for mainstream television broadcasters at the moment is ‘getting enough audiences to turn up on the night’ to watch their shows.

Lygo explained that five or six years ago, they would have expected a show like Mr Bates to bring in around six or seven million viewers, but that now an overnight audience rating of four million is as ‘good as you get’.

Britain’s Got Talent returns next Saturday at 7pm on ITV.

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