Post Office boss Nick Read has admitted his attempts to get a pay rise while victims were still waiting for compensation “looks very poor”.
Giving evidence on his third and final day at the inquiry into the Horizon scandal, the outgoing chief executive denied trying to get more money “interfered” with his ability to carry out his role.
“I don’t believe that to be the case,” he told Sam Stein KC. “I am very aware of the furore around my pay and remuneration, I’m not in any way deaf to that.”
He continued: “It looks very poor in light of the victims who are still waiting for their compensation and I very much regret the furore that has exploded and as a consequence of that has been a distraction for everybody.”
Henry Staunton, former chair of the Post Office, previously told the inquiry he had asked the government twice to double Mr Read’s pay and said the chief executive had threatened to resign over it.
Speaking to Sky News afterwards, Mr Staunton said: “It was taking up a disproportionate [amount of] time without question… it must have been taking a disproportionate amount of his energy I think.”
Mr Read was also asked about a letter he sent to the Lord Chancellor on 9 January this year after the ITV drama about the scandal was shown.
A note provided by the Post Office’s legal counsel was attached stating it was “highly likely that the vast majority of people who have not yet appealed were, in fact, guilty as charged and were safely convicted”.
Mr Read denied it had been intended to persuade the government against introducing a mass exoneration of sub-postmasters.
The letter and note were published on the Post Office website.
When asked if that was the “view of the general executive”, Mr Read said he did not believe that was the case but agreed publishing the letter and note “looks pretty appalling”.
Read more:
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Pic: PA
Mr Read was also asked where sub-postmasters’ money, used to pay non-existent shortfalls in their branches, had gone.
He said a number of external forensic accountants had been “trying to assess what it is that has gone and where it has gone”.
The accountants have identified a figure of “somewhere in the region of £36m between 1999 and 2015,” he said – the years during which hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of stealing.
“It’s our best endeavour in terms of where we’ve got to,” Mr Read added.
Mr Read joined the Post Office in 2019 and is due to stand down from the role in March 2025.
The final phase of the Post Office inquiry is due to end in mid-November.