NATIONAL Federation of Subpostmasters bosses are urging people to continue to support local post offices in Worcester.
The call follows a social media backlash to the ITV drama ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’.
Hundreds of people have vowed to boycott post offices over the four-part series depicting the Horizon scandal.
More than 700 UK postmasters were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting, with some convicted and imprisoned.
Post Office Ltd refused to entertain the idea the fault was with Horizon leading to ‘the biggest miscarriage of justice.’
Whilst viewers have been outraged by what happened to the victims, the outpouring of negative feeling towards Post Office Ltd for their role in this scandal across social media may be detrimental to postmasters’ livelihoods by association.
NFSP chief executive Calum Greenhow said:
“I cannot be more delighted that the truth is finally being heard but saddened it has taken 20 years of overcoming hurdles put in place by the leadership of this country and hundreds of millions of pounds of legal fees for that truth to finally come out.
“From experience, the public are very empathetic towards us, but by boycotting Post Office Ltd, they harm our businesses.
“It is important to ensure the general public are very much aware that as small businesspeople we want to remain at the heart of communities, serve them and support them as we always do.”
Postmasters are investors in Post Office Ltd and 98 per cent of post offices are privately owned.
Many have life savings invested and need the public’s continued support having been the most affected by this scandal.
Post offices deliver vital services to the most vulnerable in communities.
Without the post office network, millions of people would be cut adrift from these vital services.
