LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE:
I really want you all to meet my guest on today’s episode because Jo Hamilton is one exceptional woman. The kind of woman I would never get to spend time with if I didn’t have the honour of recording this podcast every week.
One of more than 700 British sub postmasters who was prosecuted between 2000 and 2014 by the Post Office, Jo was falsely accused of stealing £36,000. Ordered to put right a wrong she hadn’t committed, forced to remortgage her house and borrow from anyone she could in order to repay money that she had never taken. But it wasn’t just money. Jo lost so much more. Her confidence, her trust, her reputation, and ultimately, she believes, her parents.
Last year, Jo was immortalised by Monica Dolan who played her in the groundbreaking, BAFTA-winning TV drama, Mr Bates v The Post Office.
It was a drama that achieved what only the very best TV can. It put the plight of the sub postmasters at the heart of every conversation: on TV, in the papers, on line, at the bus stop, by the coffee machine. Suddenly everyone was talking about it.
Now her conviction overturned and her debts paid off, Jo has written Why Are You Here Mrs Hamilton? It’s an extraordinary first hand account of how she built a local shop and post office which became the heart of her community and how it was stolen from her.
Jo joined me to talk candidly about the life-upending experience and how the last twenty years have changed her. From an ordinary woman who loved people and horses to a ferocious campaigner who will not stop fighting until every last sub postmaster is paid.
Listen to the full episode here:
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