Letters after my name have vindicated me

One of more than 900 subpostmasters cruelly smeared in the Post Office Horizon Scandal, Jo Hamilton fought for justice alongside Alan Bates. Compensation and an OBE might have cleared her name, but the 20-year battle for justice continues

- By Karen Rockett

PEN Jo Hamilton’s new book and you'll find a moving dedication to her beloved parents who “never stopped believing” in her and gave her “the courage to always keep fighting”.

Jo was one of hundreds of victims of the Horizon IT Post Office scandal. Wrongly accused of fraud and convicted of 14 counts of false accounting, she received a supervision order and was forced to pay the Post Office £36,000 — although it was money she did not owe.

After a long, exhausting battle, her 2008 conviction, along with 68 others, was eventually overturned by the Court of Appeal in April 2021. She has since settled for 80% of her compensation claim, having originally been offered just 20% (it has, happily, since been topped up).

Now the 68-year-old, played on screen by Monica Dolan in the smash hit ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office last year, has written about her experiences in Why Are You Here, Mrs Hamilton? And later this month she is off to Buckingham Palace to collect her OBE, awarded in the King’s New Year's Honours for her services to justice, having fought alongside Alan Bates for the 900-plus sub-postmasters, many prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 for offences including theft, fraud and false accounting.

It is, she declares, a “total vindication”.

Her biggest regret, however, is that her parents will not be there to see her recognised for her campaigning and that they died before she was able to clear her name.

Jo’s father, Frank, died in 2016, while her mother, Min, passed away the following year, both in the house in South Warnborough, Hampshire, where Jo and her husband David still live. Both suffered strokes — she thinks due to the pressure of the case — and died of cancer. Her love for them, and gratitude, shines through in her book.