Post Office inquiry: CEO expresses 'deep regret' over compensation payment delay

Nick Read told the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry that the organisation 'hadn't lived up' to expectations concerning the speed of paying compensation to wrongly convicted sub-postmasters

The head of the Post Office has expressed "deep regret" over failing to deliver swift compensation to sub-postmasters wrongly convicted as a result of the Horizon IT scandal.

Nick Read told the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry the organisation "hadn't lived up" to "speedy and fair redress".

Mr Read - who will step down as chief executive next year - made the remarks as part of evidence he gave to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry on Thursday, the second of three days in which he is being questioned.

He had earlier told the inquiry that the Post Office should not have been involved in administering compensation schemes for wrongly convicted sub-postmasters.

'There was always going to be difficulty with the Post Office administering compensation because of the level of trust and confidence that many of the victims will have in the Post Office'

Mr Read said the Post Office's involvement in the process "was always going to be difficult" given the "level of trust and confidence that many of the victims will have in the Post Office".

He also appeared to take aim at former Post Office leaders, including his predecessor Paula Vennells, suggesting they may not have been "held to account" for being aware of problems with the Horizon IT system.

"I think one of the themes that has emerged amongst colleagues still working within the organisation is that many of the leaders historically who have appeared before this inquiry appear not to have been held to account, if indeed they were aware of and understood other issues associated with Horizon in the past," he said.

Ms Vennells is one of the senior members to have given evidence at the inquiry, during which she apologised to sub-postmasters but denied there was a conspiracy to cover up the Horizon scandal.

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Elsewhere, Mr Read addressed allegations of bullying that had previously been made against him during his time as chief executive.

He said people could "take a degree of confidence" that he had been investigated for the accusations, adding "no one is above the law in the Post Office".

"Those whistle blowing allegations that were made against me, as an example, were followed through with a fairly comprehensive investigation.

"None of the allegations, I may hasten to add, were upheld, but by definition colleagues will have taken confidence that it was possible to investigate the chief executive and the chairman, irrespective of what else was going on in the organisation and, more importantly, that those investigations went through to their natural conclusions."

'I would say that a degree of confidence would have been taken by colleagues that no one is above the law in the Post Office'

During his first day of evidence, Mr Read said he was told not to "dig into the details of the past" by the Post Office's leading lawyer, when he became chief executive of the organisation.

He said in a witness statement discussed at the inquiry: "Private prosecutions were presented to me as a historic issue that had ceased before 2015 and that I did not need to dig into the details of what had happened at Post Office in the past as this conduct had ended."

Mr Read also admitted he was not made aware of the "scale and enormity" of the Horizon IT scandal before taking the top job.

Between 1999 and 2015, more than 700 Post Office sub-postmasters were convicted of theft or false accounting and thousands more were forced to make up shortfalls due to a problem with Fujitsu's Horizon software.

Four suicides were blamed on the scandal.

Who is Nick Read?

Mr Read replaced Ms Vennells as Post Office chief executive in 2019, amid mounting criticism of her handling of the Horizon IT scandal.

He had previously headed up Nisa Retail and the now-defunct energy supplier Extra Energy and, upon joining the Post Office, was set the remit to "right the wrongs of the past".

Mr Read has said he wants to use his appearance at the inquiry to prove that "nothing like this can ever happen again".

But the incumbent head of the Post Office has faced scrutiny over allegations of bullying in the years that have followed Sir Alan Bates leading sub-postmasters to a High Court victory over the organisation in 2019.

The Post Office's former HR director, Jane Davies, has also accused Mr Read of being "obsessed with his pay", and that he repeatedly made threats to resign over the issue.

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