Mr Bates vs The Post Office is a four-part British television drama series for ITV, written by Gwyneth Hughes, directed by James Strong and starring an ensemble cast led by Toby Jones.

The series is a dramatisation of the British Post Office scandal, a miscarriage of justice in which hundreds of subpostmasters were wrongly prosecuted (privately and publicly) for theft, false accounting or fraud due to a faulty computer system called Horizon.

A faulty IT system called Horizon, developed by Fujitsu, creates apparent cash shortfalls that cause Post Office Limited to pursue prosecutions for fraud, theft and false accounting against a number of subpostmasters across the UK.

Kevin Lygo, ITV's managing director of media and entertainment, partially blamed the lack of international appeal in the subject matter for these losses.

The website's critics' consensus reads, "Dramatizing a grave injustice with terrific acting and plain-spoken righteousness, Mr Bates vs the Post Office shines much-needed light on a national scandal.

[26] The series was credited for igniting public interest in the scandal and led to demands for the former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells to have her CBE withdrawn; a petition that accrued more than 1.2 million signatures.

[33][34][35] Such was the impact of the drama that the scandal became a major news story, and on the following day Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced new legislation to exonerate wrongly convicted subpostmasters and said there would be a "new upfront payment of £75,000 for some of those affected".