Katherine Kelly: ‘I’m reluctant to talk about Mr Bates Vs The Post Office’

It has been over a year since Mr Bates Vs The Post Office sent shockwaves through the nation as many discovered the horrors of the Horizon scandal for the first time.

The ITV drama sparked renewed attention on securing justice for the subpostmasters who were wrongly convicted for cash shortfalls caused by an IT failure. It had a colossal impact – including the creation of a new law.

However, Katherine Kelly, who played Post Office executive Angela van den Bogerd, tells Metro her noble reason for her reluctance to ever discuss the drama.

‘Well, to be honest, I actually said no to all press interviews because I didn’t want Angela van den Bogerd to have any more airtime than she’d already had, and I would inevitably be asked about her and playing her,’ the 45-year-old actor explains.

Instead, the former Coronation Street star took a step back to allow more space for the actors playing the wrong subpostmasters, and, more importantly, their real-life counterparts, to highlight what has been called the ‘worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history.’

Dozens of innocent Post Office were were wrongly convicted of theft, lost their homes and went into debt, and 236 went to prison. Four people also took their own lives.

As the Post Office’s former business improvement director. Van den Bogerd is a key figure in the scandal and is also alleged to have given false evidence at the High Court in 2019 about the IT system’s ability to be accessed remotely.

Katherine continues: ‘I wanted them to have the spotlight and I felt that it shouldn’t be on Angela anymore, so I’m going to stick with that really because I feel like that’s the right look.’

While there has been progress in the wake of Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, this year The Commons Business and Trade Committee said compensation for victims is still not being paid ‘fast enough.’

Katherine agrees there is ‘still a long way to go.’ She says: ‘Things are still not as they should be. Things have not been wrapped up in the way that we’d hoped. There’s been a massive forward momentum, but, my God, there’s still a long way to go, and I think we should be talking about them rather than anybody on the other side or who I played.’

And so on to Katherine’s next role in Paramount Plus thriller The Crow Girl, based on Erik Axl Sund’s best-selling novel of the same name. In it, she plays the ‘unknowable’ and enigmatic psychotherapist Dr Sophia Craven alongside Eve Myles as DCI Jeanette Kilburn and Dougray Scott as DCI Lou Stanley.

The six-parter follows an investigation into the murders of various unidentified young men, whose bodies are being dumped all over the city. Fingers first point to paedophile Carl Lowry (Trevor White), who becomes Dr Sophia’s patient. Needless to say, the show covers the darkest and most disturbing crimes imaginable.

‘Even I was gasping at the sixth episode -and I’m in it,’ Katherine admits.

It did not take Katherine much convincing to join The Crow Girl. Two words, in fact. ‘I called my agent, and I said, “Who’s playing Jeanette?” she explains.

‘Because for me, after reading that first episode, the show rests on her. The show can only really be as good as she is.

‘And he said, “It’s Eve Myles”. And I said, “I’ll do it.” I didn’t need to read the rest.’

However, preparation for The Crow Girl was a more arduous process. ‘The book was probably one of the hardest, most difficult, most gruesome reads I’ve ever, ever had to put myself through,’ Katherine says not holding back.

‘And, actually, I didn’t know how they were going to make it in. I can’t believe[screenwriter] Milly Thomas’s transformation because this book’s been in the hands of other companies and they haven’t been able to do it.

‘They’ve given up on it because it’s such a hard to transfer onto screen but Milly Thomas has absolutely nailed it.’

The Crow Girl is coming to Paramount Plus on Thursday, January 16.

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