LIKE an extension of her living room, Jo Hamilton’s village post office was a place where people could enjoy a cup of tea and slice of cake while popping in to buy their stamps.
So when the sub-postmistress was accused of stealing £36,000 from the Post Office, her local community knew she could not be guilty.
More than 70 villagers turned out to support her when her case went to court, with the local vicar speaking in her defence.
Her community, in South Warnborough, Hants, also raised more than £6,000 towards the money she was ordered to pay back.
Jo, 66, had been a victim of the Horizon Post Office scandal, where a faulty online accounting system led to more than 700 sub-postmasters and mistresses being prosecuted — with four going on to take their own lives.
When Jo’s conviction was finally quashed in 2021, villagers welcomed her home with bunting and champagne.
Now, her tale is laid bare in ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
The four-part mini-series, which airs next month, tells the story of how a group of the wrongfully convicted Post Office workers fought back against what is described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British legal history.
It features an all-star cast, including Katherine Kelly, Julie Hesmondhalgh and Toby Jones, who plays the title role of Alan Bates.
Alan, a former sub-postmaster in Craig-y-Don, Conwy, led the campaign for justice. And Jo was by his side from the start.
She started working at her branch of the Post Office in 2001, before successfully applying for the role of sub-postmistress two years later.
She was so well thought of that many of the elderly ladies in the village even entrusted her with their debit cards and pin numbers.
Grandmother Jo, who is married to David, 76, a retired landscape gardener, explains: “They hated chip and pin as they couldn’t work it.
“I had all their cards and pin numbers securely in a drawer.
“I’d cash their pension, do their shopping in my store then put the receipts in the shopping.
“Then we’d take their shopping to them on a Saturday morning. This is how the trust was.”
While Jo, who is mum to James, 42, a police detective, and Joff, 41, a commercial gas engineer, says she never had any issue balancing her books with the old paper accounting system, she ran into trouble with the new Horizon computer system, installed and maintained by Fujitsu in branches across England and Wales.
She says: “I was told I was the only one having issues. It was terrifying because I thought I was doing something wrong. I knew nothing about computers. They’d given us no training. Back then, I was very naive and thought whatever the computer said must be right.
“I trusted them because who would have thought the Royal Mail could be that awful?”
In the drama, Jo is played by Bafta-winning actress Monica Dolan, who she met during production.
Jo says: “Somehow she became me. A friend said she could be my twin.”
In one scene, Monica, who has also played killer Rose West and fraudster Anne Darwin, recreates Jo’s despair as she calls the Post Office helpline after finding she has a £2,000 “shortfall” — only for the advice she receives to lead to an apparent £4,000 shortfall.
Jo says: “It was exactly what happened. They have done a really good job of portraying it.”
When Jo told the helpline she did not have £4,000, she says she was told: “That’s alright, we’ll keep your wages.”
As Jo’s shortfall continued to grow, she remortgaged her home twice and borrowed from friends amid fears she would get the sack.
She recalls: “I’d be on the shop floor at midnight with the paperwork all around me. I never told my family that it kept on happening.
“I was so ashamed, then I just got myself into this massive hole that I couldn’t get out of.
“There was a third discrepancy, which I rang them up about and they said, ‘If you do this one more time, you’re going to be sacked’. I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I’m going to lose everything’.”
When her shortfall rose to £10,000 in 2006, she was sacked, audited and charged with theft of £36,000.
As her case came to court in February 2008, she packed a bag and said goodbye to her family, fearing she was going to prison.
She says of the villagers who came along to support her: “I couldn’t believe how many people turned out.
“There were 74 people from the village and I had two folders full of character witnesses. They all gave me a hug and wished me good luck.”
In a last-minute plea bargain, she accepted a lesser charge of false accounting and agreed to pay back the £36,000.
She was sentenced to a community order.
She says: “I had tears streaming down my face because I was expecting to go to prison.”
An inquiry into the scandal has since heard that Post Office investigators had evidence indicating that many of the accused had never stolen any money, which they hid from legal defence teams.
Jo’s conviction caught the attention of the media, with her recalling: “I went down to buy fuel for the car and there I was, plastered across the front page of my local paper.
“It was really embarrassing because I was branded a fraudster. But the good thing was other people like me came out of the woodwork. And we all just kind of found each other.”
Jo has become close friends with Alan, a postmaster from 1998 to 2003, who organised a public meeting in November 2009 to start a fightback.
She recalls: “It was like an AA meeting. We all sat round in a circle and introduced ourselves.
“I said, ‘I’m Jo and I’ve been done for false accounting’.
“We all told the same story but we had all been told by the Post Office that we were the only ones. That is when the penny dropped.”
The ITV drama also features the suicide of a former postmaster, who both Jo and Alan knew.
I got into debt all over the place, paying bills and the minimum on credit cards. My mum bailed me out so many times.
Jo Hamilton
Jo says: “I remember that day and I was just so angry. Alan then said to me, ‘They’ve got blood on their hands’. And I just went into fighting mode.”
In total, Jo found herself in around £80,000 of debt.
She says: “I got into debt all over the place, paying bills and the minimum on credit cards.
“I literally tried to get money from everywhere to keep going. My mum bailed me out so many times.”
A heartbroken Jo eventually had to sell her beloved shop because she could not afford to keep it open.
She says: “It was the heart of the community. It was like a massive front room, where everyone could just walk in and get a cup of tea.”
She had to find work as a cleaner, which she still does now, and was even barred from volunteering at her granddaughter’s school due to her criminal conviction.
She explains: “I went to make Easter bonnets and the deputy head came over to me and said, ‘I’m really sorry but you’re going to have to leave’. It still hurts now.”
Her conviction was finally quashed in 2021 and Jo says: “It was an emotional day. Both my parents suffered strokes and had passed away so they didn’t get to see it.”
But villagers organised a surprise party on her return home.
Jo recalls: “As we turned the corner, there were people on the village green. They were all waving and when I pulled up to my house, the railings were covered in bunting.
“They gave me a bottle of champagne.”
The Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry started in 2020 and is still ongoing.
Jo gave evidence last year and has received an interim compensation payment.
But she has vowed to continue campaigning with Alan on behalf of other victims.
She says: “It’s still not over. I was with Alan from day one and I feel that unless he stops, I can’t stop. I can’t stop fighting for other people.”
