A True Account of Post Office Injustice

This week, headlines have been dominated by renewed attention on the hundreds of Post Office workers affected by the Horizon IT scandal following the airing of the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which has reignited public awareness and generated a further sense of urgency to address the consequences of the scandal.

At this time, we’re very proud to have played a small part in bringing the story of Noel Thomas, a Welsh sub-postmaster who was imprisoned for nine months after being accused of stealing money from the post office he ran on Ynys Mon, Wales, to light. The Stamp of Innocence, written by Welsh writer Aled Gwyn Jôb and based on extensive interviews with Noel and his daughter Sian, who has devoted years of her life to clearing her father’s name, is the first biography of one of the twenty sub-postmasters who were falsely imprisoned. 

Between 1999 and 2015, over 700 sub-postmasters and mistresses in the UK were wrongly convicted of false accounting, theft and fraud based on information from a flawed computer system called Horizon. The repercussions of these wrongful convictions were severe, with some postmasters facing imprisonment, financial ruin and bankruptcy as a result. To date, only 93 convictions have been overturned and many victims continue to seek compensation. The systemic failure has been described as the most extensive miscarriage of justice in UK history.

The Stamp of Innocence is a story about an unbreakable bond between a father and a daughter, leading to their eventual redemption in the Court of Appeal in April 2021. However, their efforts continue to be fully compensated for the cruel injustice that was perpetrated against them. It’s a tale to shock and horrify, but also to uplift and inspire.

Troubador was originally commissioned by Aled Gwyn Jôb to self-publish the book as an ebook-only edition, which was released at the end of October 2023. Aled and Noel then went on to produce a print edition, which has already gone on to sell out of its first print run. Since the ITV drama, which includes a dramatisation of Noel’s story, was aired, we’ve been contacted by media outlets wanting to get in touch with Aled and Noel to learn more about this remarkable story and we expect it to generate attention for some time to come.

It’s been a great privilege to be a part of a book which we hope will play a part in bringing the full implications of this scandal to light and we wish Noel, Aled and Sian every success with the book.