Welsh BBC presenter returns to home soil to revisit story 10 years later

Amelia Jones 

A BBC presenter has returned to Wales to reunite with a Caerphilly postmaster she first met more than a decade ago.

Carmarthenshire-born presenter Alex Jones, travelled to Nelson to meet Steve, who runs the local post office and who first appeared on the BBC programme in December 2014.

At the time, Steve was facing an alleged £44,000 shortfall at his branch and was among hundreds of sub-postmasters caught up in the Post Office Horizon scandal.

The scandal saw faulty accounting data from the Horizon computer system make it appear that money was missing from post office branches.

Sub-postmasters across the UK were wrongly accused of theft and false accounting, with some prosecuted as a result. The scandal was popularised by BBC TV series Mr Bates vs The Post Office which aired in 2024.

More than ten years after Steve first shared his experience on television, Jones returned to the same branch to find that his problems with the accounts have not completely disappeared.

During her visit, Steve showed her his latest figures, which he said continued to show discrepancies.

He said:“I’m still getting ups and downs as you can see by this here, Thursday £1.44 down, Friday £276 down. The Post Office say they want me to put that money back in.”

Steve said the Post Office was still asking him to repay some of the money.

Despite the difficulties he has faced over the years, he has continued running the branch because of the people who rely on it.

He told Jones that the support he has received from people in the local community has helped him carry on.

He said he had not received a single negative comment from people in the area, despite the problems surrounding his branch and the wider Horizon scandal.

Steve has now received £75,000 in compensation and is preparing to retire from the post office.

After so many years serving customers in Nelson, however, he admitted that leaving will be an emotional moment. He told Jones he expects to feel “a bit of sadness” when he finally steps away from the branch.

The programme was a part of The One Show’s 20th anniversary features. The series of segments will see Alex Jones and Roman Kemp celebrate the milestone,  with a week of special programmes featuring celebrity guests, memorable reunions, surprise moments and stories that have captivated viewers over the last two decades.

---

Get more trusted Welsh news

Choose Nation.Cymru as a preferred source in Google News to see more of our journalism.