Who will be giving evidence at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry?

After the TV drama hero appeared on Tuesday, John Rentoul looks at who else will be in the hot seat

Alan Bates in the spotlight once again as he arrives at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry on Tuesday (AFP)

Alan Bates, the former subpostmaster made famous by the ITV drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, was characteristically modest about his role as he gave evidence on Tuesday to the public inquiry into the failings of the Horizon IT system at the Post Office.

He told of finding himself leading a group of 500 subpostmasters, “stray lambs” who realised that they all felt a similar sense of injustice at the high-handed way they were treated by the Post Office. He gave up work in 2003 to pursue justice, but “I didn’t set out to spend 20 years doing this,” he told the inquiry.

The inquiry also heard how Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats and then the minister for the Post Office, refused to meet Mr Bates but was eventually persuaded to do so by his officials, for “presentational reasons”.