Patrick is a BAFTA and RTS Award winning television producer.  He is Managing Director of AC Chapter One (Chapter One is partnered with Anonymous Content in the US, and Casarotto and United Agents in the UK).  His recent productions include Gwyn Hughes’ smash hit – 15m viewers and still rising - and RTS and BPG Award winning MR BATES vs THE POST OFFICE for ITV, starring Toby Jones, Monica Dolan, Ian Hart and Alex Jennings, about hundreds of sub-postmasters fighting back against the Post Office in what has now been accepted as the largest miscarriage of justice in British legal history – the drama caused such national outrage that within eight days of transmission, the Prime Minister last week moved to change the law – without reference to the judiciary – to offer a mass pardon to those wrongly convicted; Alex Cary’s BAFTA and Hollywood Critics Association nominated adaptation of Ben Macintyre’s A SPY AMONG FRIENDS for ITVX and MGM+, starring Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce, about the establishment’s response to the revelations that Kim Philby was a traitor (‘the best British espionage drama since Alec Guinness in Tinker Tailor’ Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail); George Kay’s LITVINENKO for ITVX and AMC, starring David Tennant, about the Metropolitan Police’s ten year investigation – now accepted as the most dangerous and complex in their history – to prove that Putin had ordered the murder on British soil; and Pete Bowker’s RTS and Scope Award-winning RALPH AND KATIE for BBC1 and Disney+, written and directed by disabled talent, about the early days of marriage for a couple with Downs Syndrome.   
  
Past credits include (one season on) Steven Knight’s PEAKY BLINDERS, starring Cillian Murphy and Helen McCrory; Jack Thorne’s THE EDDY for Netflix, directed by the Academy Award winning Damien Chazelle, about immigrants playing in a jazz band in contemporary Paris, and what it feels like to live in a city that doesn’t want you; Lucy Kirkwood’s BAFTA nominated ADULT MATERIAL for C4 and HBO Max, starring Hayley Squires and Rupert Everett, about a porn performer taking her producer to court over consent on a film set; the Academy Award winning John Ridley’s GUERRILLA for Showtime and Sky Atlantic, starring Idris Elba, Freida Pinto, and Babou Ceesay, about black activists fighting back hard against a racist police force in 1970’s London; Pete Bowker’s THE A WORD, for BBC1 and Sundance, about a family whose young son is diagnosed with autism; Simon Donald’s Arctic horror series FORTITUDE for Sky Atlantic and Amazon; and Pete Bowker’s BAFTA Award winning MARVELLOUS, for BBC2, starring Toby Jones, about a man with a learning disability whose life transcends that label. 
 
Patrick was until 2010 Head of Drama, BBC Northern Ireland, where he commissioned and executive produced Pete Bowker’s Bafta, RTS, WGA, BPG and Prix Europa Award winning serial OCCUPATION, starring Steven Graham about three soldiers returning to Iraq after the war; and Guy Hibbert’s Bafta, RTS and Sundance Film Award winning single film FIVE MINUTES OF HEAVEN, starring Liam Neeson, about the steps towards reconciliation in Northern Ireland; as well as the Bafta nominated dramas HANCOCK AND JOAN, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING and MURPHY’S LAW. Credits from his earlier career include launching and executive producing WAKING THE DEAD, executive producing SILENT WITNESS; and his first job was as script editor on Jimmy McGovern’s CRACKER.

Global Conference: Changemakers Impact

Mr Bates V The Post Office. The transformational power of a story of injustice. Well told.

Patrick Spence MD AC Chapter One and Natasha Bondy Co-founder & Creative Director Little Gem producers of Mr Bates V The Post Office

The power of extraordinary story telling: a story about the far reaching impact of a drama that hastened legislation to compensate wrongly accused sub-postmasters within just a few weeks of its release.