“I've paid my dues
Time after time
I've done my sentence
But committed no crime”
Photo credit: Yui Mok/PA
The Post Office Horizon scandal is one of the UK's largest miscarriages of justice.
Sub-postmasters, who run smaller post office branches, were wrongly accused of theft and fraud due to a faulty accounting system called Horizon. This system caused errors that made it appear as if money was missing.
Hundreds of innocent lives and livelihoods were ruined – many facing bankruptcy, loss of homes, and even imprisonment. The Post Office relentlessly prosecuted the victims for years despite knowing the system was flawed.
In February 2024 we invited everyone to join us and raise our voices together to show support for the sub-postmasters affected. Choir of the Earth’s marvellous Musical Director Ben England BEM led us in a live session where we learned, sang and recorded Queen’s We Are The Champions.
Our amazing audio engineers have been hard at work mixing the recordings submitted, ready to premiere the final performance to the world on 23 April 2024 - the anniversary of the quashing of the first Horizons-related criminal charges at the Court of Appeal. This special concert performance is open to everyone and available here:
As well as showing solidarity with the sub-postmasters and raising awareness of their cause, this project aims to raise money for the Horizon Scandal Fund, which helps the sub-postmasters affected by disbursing grants to those in need, for example for counselling, therapy, respite breaks, hardship alleviation and much more. We will share details on how you can contribute to this important Fund soon.
How it all works
Our singers paid £5 per person to sign up to this project, with net proceeds going to the Horizon Scandal Fund.
On Friday 23 February 2024, Choir of the Earth’s marvellous Musical Director, Ben England BEM held a fantastic, fun YouTube rehearsal, where we taught Queen’s We Are The Champions note by note.
We watched and sang along with the rehearsal to learn the song, then followed Ben’s instructions to record our voices as we sang along at home. All our singers needed to participate was a device capable of recording their voice, such as a voice memo app on their smartphone, and a pair of headphones so we couldn’t hear the backing track when they sing along. They sent their recordings to us by the deadline on 23 March 2024 at 22:00 UK time and our amazing audio engineers then set to work to combine everyone’s voices together in the sound studio to create our global recording!
Do you know anyone who works in the media who might be interested in telling the world about our project? Please direct them to this page, and to the press release below.
PRESS RELEASE: https://choiroftheearth.com/s/Sing-for-Sub-Postmasters-Press-Release-17-1-24.pdf