Alan Bates tells inquiry Post Office spent decades ‘lying and trying to discredit me’

Campaigner at forefront of fight for justice over faulty Horizon system says government should have been involved far earlier

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Alan Bates, who has led the campaign to rectify what has been called the UK’s biggest miscarriage of justice, has accused the Post Office of spending two decades “denying, lying, defending and attempting to discredit and silence me”.

He also described the response of Ed Davey, a former Post Office minister and now leader of the Liberal Democrats, to his appeals for help as “disappointing and offensive”.