Post Office turmoil has intensified after the company’s ousted chairman insisted its current chief executive is the subject of an internal investigation, not him.
Former chair Henry Staunton was dismissed last month by business secretary Kemi Badenoch who said bullying accusations had been made against him.
But on Tuesday, Mr Staunton told MPs on the Business and Trade Committee that it was the CEO Nick Read who was being investigated.
Mr Staunton said the Post Office boss “fell out” with the business’s [human resources] HR director and said that his own behaviour was only referenced once in an 80-page document about Mr Read.
The ex-chairman said there was one paragraph in the report on alleged politically incorrect remarks made by him and he “strenuously denied” the claim.
“This was a big investigation into Nick. And I didn’t realise you weren’t aware of that,” he told MPs.
Asked if he was informed his behaviour was under investigation in November last year, Mr Staunton said: “What there is, actually, is Mr Read fell out with his HR director and she produced a ‘speak up’ document which was 80 pages thick.
“Within that, was one paragraph… about comments that I allegedly made. So this is an investigation, not into me, this is an investigation made into the chief executive Nick Read.
“That one paragraph you could say was about politically incorrect comments attributed to me which I strenuously deny.”
He also claimed that Mr Read told him on several occasions that he wanted to resign and was unhappy with his salary.
“I think he was doing fine. Huge, huge pressures on him. I must have had four conversations when he said he was going to chuck it in,” Mr Staunton told MPs.
Downing Street said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had confidence in Mr Read following Mr Staunton’s claims.
Mr Staunton also told the committee that he has been the victim of a “smear campaign” since his public fallout with Ms Badenoch.
He previously claimed he had been told to delay payouts to subpostmasters affected by problems with the Horizon computer system.
It opened a furious row with the Business Secretary, who accused him of spreading “made-up anecdotes”.
But Mr Staunton doubled-down on his claims during yesterday’s hearing, telling MPs that in a meeting with senior civil servant, Sarah Munby, last year “I was left in no doubt that this was not a time to rip off the band aid”.
Mr Read had earlier cast doubt on Mr Staunton’s claims, saying he does not believe anyone at the company was told by the Government to slow down the payments of compensation to subpostmasters.
Former subpostmaster and lead campaigner Alan Bates told the committee that the Government should “get on and pay people” amid continued fall-out from the Horizon IT scandal.
He said the Post Office should be “sold to someone like Amazon for £1” as he described the organisation as a “dead duck” that is “going to be a money pit for the taxpayer in the years to come”.
The campaigner led a group of 555 subpostmasters who took the Post Office to the High Court over the scandal, which was settled in December 2019.
His story recently became the subject of an ITV drama titled Mr Bates vs The Post Office, starring actor Toby Jones.
The Post Office revealed to the committee that it has had another 1,000 claims for financial redress since the series aired last month.
Questioned on whether he believed the Government had got a grip of the redress process, Mr Bates said: “No, I’m afraid not – it’s very disappointing.
“This has been going on for years, as you well know, and I can’t see any end to it.”
The Horizon IT scandal saw more than 700 subpostmasters prosecuted by the Post Office and handed criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 as Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon system made it appear as though money was missing at their branches.
Hundreds of subpostmasters are still awaiting compensation despite the Government announcing that those who have had convictions quashed are eligible for £600,000 payouts.
