FORMER sub-postmaster Sir Alan Bates has reached a deal to settle his claim over the Post Office Horizon scandal.
The breakthrough comes more than two decades after he began campaigning in what turned into one of Britain's biggest miscarriages of justice.
According to reports, the government has agreed a deal with the former sub-postmaster after handing him what he described as a "take it or leave it" offer during the spring.
A government spokesperson said, "We pay tribute to Sir Alan Bates for his long record of campaigning on behalf of victims and have now paid out over £1.2 billion to more than 9,000 victims.
"We can confirm that Sir Alan's claim has reached the end of the scheme process and been settled."
Sir Alan was previously made a compensation offer worth just one-sixth of his claim, which he had branded "derisory".
He helped lead the fight to prove that the Horizon software system, used by the Post Office and supplied by Japanese technology company Fujitsu, was faulty.
Hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted for fraud and theft between 1999 and 2015, with some taking their own lives over the scandal.
In 2017, Sir Alan and a group of 555 sub-postmasters sued the Post Office in the High Court, ultimately winning a £58 million settlement.
However, swinging legal fees left the group with just £12m of that sum, prompting ministers to establish a separate compensation scheme amid a growing outcry.
Even so, the compensation scheme set up to administer redress has been mired in controversy.
Sir Alan previously described the process as "quasi-kangaroo courts in which the Department for Business and Trade sits in judgement of the claims and alters the goalposts as and when it chooses".
This comes after the first volume of Sir Wyn Williams's public inquiry into the Horizon scandal was published in July.
It concluded that at least 13 people may have taken their own lives after being accused of wrongdoing, even though the Post Office and Fujitsu knew the Horizon system was flawed.
