PA MediaThe outgoing chief executive of the Post Office has said he was told “not to dig into” details of the Horizon scandal when he joined the business in 2019.
Nick Read, who is beginning three days of evidence at an inquiry, was brought into the business to try to turn it around following findings that the IT system was behind the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters.
During previous hearings, some executives have claimed Mr Read was “obsessed” with increasing his salary. He has also been investigated – and cleared – of bullying.
On Wednesday, Mr Read said when he joined the Post Office, its leadership were “part in denial, part in paralysis” about issues with the Horizon system.
Bosses were instead focussed on the company’s financial performance, adding he was not made aware of the “scale and enormity” of the scandal.
Mr Read said in a witness statement that private prosecutions of sub-postmasters “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”.
He confirmed to Horizon inquiry lead counsel Jason Beer that the Post Office’s general counsel Ben Foat had told him that. Mr Foat is currently on a leave of absence.
Mr Read also said that dealing with the Horizon scandal was not flagged to him as an issue when he joined the organisation in September 2019.
He was brought in to replace Paula Vennells at a time when the loss-making organisation was facing a crisis of faith as the scale of the Horizon scandal came to light.
Mr Read told the inquiry that when a High Court judgement was handed down late in 2019 that found serious bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon system, there were “no urgent calls or panicked discussions” among senior leadership and the board, he said.
He agreed with a lawyer’s suggestion that bosses were “living in something of a dream world”.
He said it would be “impossible not to conclude that”, when asked by the inquiry’s lead counsel Jason Beer KC.
Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted when faulty Horizon accounting software made it look as though money was missing from branches.
But in 2017, some 555 sub-postmasters took legal action against the Post Office. In 2019, it agreed to pay them £58m in compensation, but much of the money went on legal fees.
One High Court judgement found the Horizon IT software contained a large number of software defects and was not “remotely robust”. A second – the Horizon Issues Judgement – found serious bugs in the system.
Mr Read told the inquiry that after the High Court judgement was handed down, he started working with Post Office lawyers so there was “more of a realisation from my perspective” as to the scale of the issue compared with the other members of the leadership team.
Mr Read, who will step down from his role next year, stepped back from front-line duties last year to give his “entire attention” to the final stage of the inquiry, which first started in 2022 and has heard evidence from scores of victims and executives.
