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New stage play explores the Post Office scandal

BBC Actor Liz Elvin in the witness box during play rehearsals for the drama, "Glitch'BBC
Liz Elvin plays the Berkshire sub-postmistress whose detailed paper records were crucial evidence against the Post Office

A new play focusing on the Post Office Horizon scandal is set to make its debut.

It tells the true story of Pam Stubbs, a sub-postmistress in Barkham, Berkshire who was accused of stealing from the company but managed to clear her name.

She kept paper records of every transaction at her shop which showed the Horizon computer system was not infallible.

The play Glitch is being staged at Reading University's Minghella Theatre from 27 June.

Pam Stubbs shows her paper records to the BBC in 2015
Pam Stubbs spent hours trying to reconcile her own records with the shortfalls recorded by Horizon

More than 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted for stealing because of incorrect information from the Horizon computer system.

In 2017, a group of 555 sub-postmasters took legal action against the Post Office.

It has been called the UK's most widespread miscarriage of justice.

The play takes its name from an e-mail from then Post Office boss, Paula Vennells, where she asked for "less emotive words" that could be used to describe what was happening with the accounting system.

Ms Stubbs was never charged for shortfalls but she lost the business she had taken on after the death of her husband.

In 2015, she showed the BBC the paper records that she had made, often working late into the night trying to match up her receipts with those generated by the Post Office system.

In the play, she tells how she retrieved the records from the bin outside the business after she was locked out of it by Post Office officials.

"She is such an amazing woman," said Liz Elvin, who plays Pam Stubbs on stage and who met her during rehearsals.

"She was the crux of the evidence of this case because she was so meticulous with her paperwork."

A seminar at the University of Reading which commissioned the play
The play has been a collaboration between the law school at Reading University and local company Rabble Theatre

Barrister turned academic, Elizabeth Conaghan, an associate professor at Reading University's School of Law, commissioned the drama.

She first met Pam when she moved to Barkham and soon learned that she had been "at the heart of the scandal and done an amazing and brilliant job standing up for herself and her colleagues."

One of Prof Conaghan's students, Safiya Rizvi, said it had been a completely new experience, seeing the case acted out rather than reading about it.

"I understood what people go through when they are involved in legal proceedings, rather than just looking at the technicalities," she said.

Safiya Rizvi, one of the students who worked on the play in its early stages
Student Safiya Rizvi said seeing the miscarriage of justice dramatised made it feel "really personal"

The play was already in production when ITV broadcast its drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office.

Pam was a relatively minor character on-screen, but the theatre production places her centre stage.

Law student Martina Hudson said she felt watching something on TV meant you were a passive observer.

"When you watch a play, you are in the room and you basically act like a jury," she said.

"You decide what you think is the right thing."

Martina Hudson who is an undergraduate at Reading University, pictured in front of a screen showing the judgement in the case of Bates v The Post Office
Being in the audience is like being "on the jury" said student Martina Hudson

Glitch is being staged at Reading University's Minghella Theatre until early July but there are hopes of taking it on tour around the UK next year.