'Chaotic' Post Office should be removed from Horizon scandal redress process, MPs demand

The Post Office should be removed from involvement in the Post Office Horizon scandal compensation processes, a committee of MPs has demanded.

The Business and Trade Committee published recommendations for delivering faster and fuller payments to the hundreds of victims, describing efforts to deliver redress to date as an "abject failure".

Its report stated the Post Office was "not fit for purpose to administer any of the schemes required to make amends".

It blamed both victims' lack of confidence in the firm and its "chaotic" leadership.

The MPs' determinations were released as a separate war of words plays out.

The focus on the sub-postmaster victims shifted last week when former Post Office chairman Henry Staunton, sacked by the business secretary in January, told the committee that an investigation believed to have focused on his own conduct was actually concentrated on chief executive Nick Read.

A letter by Mr Staunton to the committee, and released by the MPs, alleged that Mr Read was facing claims of bullying and sexism by a senior member of staff.

He also cast doubts again on Mr Read's assertion, in front of the committee, that he had not threatened to resign.

Mr Staunton claimed Mr Read was particularly unhappy over his salary and dismissed conduct questions against himself as "flimsy".

The committee is expected to consider whether to publish a document, pledged by the Post Office, that is understood to include the details of the allegations against Mr Read.

In its findings against the Post Office on Thursday, the committee expressed a lack of confidence in his leadership.

"Mr Read has supplied misleading evidence to the committee on at least two counts, relating to the Post Office's use of,
first, non-disclosure agreements and, secondly, public relations firms.

"The Post Office is not fit for purpose to administer any of the schemes of redress required to make amends for one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history", it noted.

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