Mr Bates team hope justice for subpostmasters will mean no need for a sequel

He continued: "We carried the baton for a bit, we need [the press] to spread the message that they haven't been paid yet, it's not over, and they're being bamboozled with bureaucracy and crap, so please, we beg you, don't make us make another drama, get the message out – and tell them.

"There are still people in abject poverty waiting for fair compensation."

Hughes added that "it's really good for the cause that we won tonight" as she hoped it would mean renewed attention towards the ongoing fight for justice.

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"It's a complicated situation – there's several different compensation schemes going on, they're all mired in different parts of the government, nobody seems to know what's happening," she said.

"But our main characters have not been paid, they haven't got their compensation... Jesus, it's been going for 25 years. So, of course, if we're on the front pages tomorrow waving our little statuette, that's bound to get it back in people's consciousness and get people to make an effort."

She concluded: "I really hope that it helps, that would make all this worthwhile."

Mr Bates vs The Post Office dramatised the British Post Office scandal, a miscarriage of justice in which hundreds of subpostmasters were wrongly prosecuted for theft, false accounting or fraud due to a faulty computer system.

Mr Bates vs The Post Office is streaming on ITVX now.

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