[2] As a project manager in the heritage sector, he worked on the installation of electronic point of sale systems for castles in Wales and for the Eureka!

[2]: 53–4 In the late 1990s, Bates and his partner Suzanne Sercombe, a special needs teacher, decided on a career-change and began looking for a Post Office branch to run.

[5] In April 2024, when giving evidence at the Horizon IT public inquiry, Bates was shown internal Post Office documents in which his termination was said to be due to him being "unmanageable" and which referred to him as someone who "struggled with accounting".

[3] Bates told Radio New Zealand that he and his partner Suzanne were luckier than many of the other subpostmasters: Even though the post office was taken away, we still had the retail side of our business, which we ran for a few years… We were fortunate enough to come out with enough to buy outright a small property for ourselves… We both had basic jobs and also I went back to college to [study] more on computer sciences and stuff of that sort, which was very useful going forward.

A letter to his local newspaper was published in October 2003 and led to an article in which he was quoted as saying that he would fight for as long as it takes to right the wrong done to himself and the people of Craig-y-Don.

[2]: 62  In May 2009, Computer Weekly broke the story of the Post Office scandal, featuring the cases of Alan Bates and six other subpostmasters.

[2]: 91–3  The story was taken up by BBC Wales's current affairs programme Taro Naw, which included an interview with Bates and was broadcast in September 2009.

[6] Represented by solicitor James Hartley from the Yorkshire firm Freeths and a team of barristers under Patrick Green of Henderson Chambers, subpostmasters obtained funding for their case against the Post Office from litigation funders Therium.

[7][2]: 438  Judge Peter Fraser issued his first judgment in March 2019, finding that the Post Office contract was unfair on subpostmasters.

[10] In September 2020, the government set up an independent inquiry, chaired by retired High Court judge Sir Wyn Williams, into the Horizon scandal.

[3]He referred to Post Office officials as "thugs in suits" and said the government had been vindictive in offering him a derisory sum in compensation.

[22] In July 2024, Bates and fellow Post Office campaigner Noel Thomas were awarded honorary degrees by Bangor University.