Fenny Compton: The village where Post Office scandal battle began

Julie Hesmondhalgh plays Suzanne Sercombe, the partner of Alan Bates in the TV drama

It is a sleepy village in Warwickshire with a population of just 800, but Fenny Compton has been thrown into the national spotlight after its village hall was chosen at random for the start of the fightback by victims of the Post Office scandal.

Residents spoke to the BBC as the country continues to reel from what has been dubbed the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history.

It played its "own little part in that history," said Kate Carless, the hall's current treasurer, with the village attracting visitors, some even stopping to take selfies outside the hall.

"I'm no longer the bookings secretary for the village hall, I'm more like its agent at the moment," Ms Carless adds.

Fenny Compton's village hall was used for the first meeting of wrongly-convicted sub-postmasters and mistresses

It is here where between 30 and 40 ex sub-postmasters and mistresses met for the first time one Sunday in 2009 - a gathering that led to the creation of the Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance (JFSA) campaign group.

The occasion was the first time many of them discovered they weren't alone in having fallen victim to the bugs in an accounting system called Horizon.

The man who orchestrated that meeting was Alan Bates - now in the spotlight following the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office.

Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office prosecuted 736 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses - an average of one a week - for fraudulent activity, based on information from Horizon.

Many, including Mr Bates, maintained their innocence and said they had repeatedly raised issues about errors in the accounting software.

But some went to prison for false accounting and theft, many were financially ruined, and some even took their own lives or died before getting a chance to clear their names.

However, despite the avalanche of new publicity around the scandal, only 93 of them have had their convictions overturned.

Now, a fresh police investigation into the Post Office and the way it pursued the cases has been launched, with 50 new potential victims coming forward.

Former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells is also handing back her CBE with immediate effect, after a petition exceeded a million signatures.

The TV drama and subsequent publicity has now really "put the village in the spotlight," said Ms Carless.

'How could this have happened?'

"We've had people driving past the village hall quite slowly taking photos," she said.

"But it's a shame it has had to get to this for those people that have been affected.

"When you started watching the drama you were thinking how could this have happened to people."

In the drama Mr Bates, played by Toby Jones, can be seen seemingly choosing somewhere random for affected sub-postmasters to meet.

"Putting that pin into the map seems to have ignited both the residents and other people, who know that I live here, to get in touch," said village hall trustee Keith Hicks.

Cindy Williams said there was a move to invite Alan Bates back to the village

He said he had heard of people taking selfies outside the hall, "which seems quite amazing".

The hall wasn't used in the filming of the drama, he explained, "but I can appreciate with the parking issues around here that it wouldn't be easy to bring a production team in".

He said he didn't remember the meeting in 2009, describing it as "very low key".

"It wasn't until I listened to the BBC Radio 4 podcast, The Great Post Office Trial, that I realised the significance that this little hall had played in the whole story," he said.

"These people were the life and soul of the community and then they were damned by the Post Office without any thought that they may be right.

"The fact that they came together here in the very first place, and realised that they weren't single entities, I think it's very significant."

Village hall trustee Keith Hicks said he had heard of people taking selfies outside the hall

Other local residents said they had also been amazed at the part their village played in the story.

"When you see him look at the map it's just amazing to think that they came here - it's a proud moment for the little people," said Alan Booth.

Cindy Williams added there was the start of a local campaign to get Mr Bates back to the village for a visit.

"That would be so interesting, quite honestly," she said.