The National Federation of Subpostmasters is urging people to continue to support local post offices in Northern Ireland after a social media backlash to the ITV drama ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’.
Several people have vowed to boycott post offices over the four-part series depicting the Horizon scandal, which is the biggest miscarriage of justice ever seen in the United Kingdom.
More than 700 postmasters across the United Kingdom were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting, with some convicted and imprisoned. Post Office Ltd refused to entertain the idea that the fault was with Horizon.
Whilst the general public 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: “From experience, the general public are very empathetic towards us as postmasters, but they may not realise that by boycotting Post Office Ltd, they harm our businesses.
“It is important to ensure that 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."
Post offices are the beating heart of local communities. Postmasters are investors in Post Office Ltd and 98% of post offices are privately owned. Many have life savings in their business, and they need the public’s continued support as postmasters have already been the most affected by this scandal.
The NFSP has put together a PR and Marketing campaign to encourage the general public to continue to support their local post office.
Please click on the links below to download materials:
Posters
Poster to put up in branch - full colour
Poster to put up in branch - minimal colour
Social media
Here is a link to the explainer page that you can use on your social media channels https://bit.ly/3RIIGzl
