Post Office dragging its feet getting rid of tainted staff, despite government ‘green light’

October 10

The Post Office is taking too long getting rid of staff with connections to the Horizon scandal, despite a former government minster’s call for robust action on the individuals.

The former minister told the Post Office to deal with the staff in question “robustly”, even if it meant the firm being taken to an employment tribunal.

During a Post Office scandal public inquiry hearing, CEO Nick Read admitted the Post Office “dragged its feet” when dealing with employees in roles related to auditing and investigation at the time the Post Office was wrongfully prosecuting subpostmasters using flawed evidence.

In the latest public inquiry hearing, Read was asked about an exchange, earlier this year, with the former under-secretary of state at the Department for Business and Trade, Kevin Hollinrake.

Hollinrake made clear in that meeting he wanted staff involved in the scandal to be dealt with quickly and robustly, even if it led to the Post Office being challenged in a tribunal. During the meeting, he said he was “not a big fan of paying people off”.

Asked by public inquiry KC Jason Beer whether this was a “green light” from government to take action, Read agreed: “I do not think we have been as robust as that.”

During the hearing it was also revealed that the Post Office has a strategy of paying off these former staff with redundancy or voluntary redundancy. Victims of the scandal are in disbelief that people involved with prosecutions in the past are still working at the Post Office.

Awaiting data

Read’s latest appearance at the hearing also heard that as recently as June this year, 22 police forces had requested or were awaiting data from the Horizon system for use in 33 investigations. An internal Post Office internal document, discussing proposed changes to how evidence is provided to law enforcement agencies, revealed the numbers. This comes after the revelations of the Post Office scandal and the use of flawed computer evidence to prosecute was exposed in the High Court in 2019.

Read said he was surprised by the scale of requests, and that it required “pause for thought”.

The Post Office scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to Horizon accounting software, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history (see below timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal since 2009).

• Also read: What you need to know about the Horizon scandal •

• Also watch: ITV’s documentary – Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The real story •

• Also read: Post Office and Fujitsu malevolence and incompetence means huge taxpayers’ bill •

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