Post Office chief executive Nick Read has told the Horizon IT scandal inquiry that he was told he didn’t need to dig into the past details of sub-postmasters’ prosecutions when he joined the company.
Mr Read, who is leaving his post in March, explained that when he started as CEO in 2019 there was a sense that the Post Office needed to “move on” from the Horizon scandal. He told the inquiry that during his interview process dealing with litigation was not mentioned as part of the job.
He also told the inquiry that three people were currently under further investigation by the Post Office and external agencies, following allegations made by victims of the Horizon scandal.
Mr Read oversaw the Post Office’s response to legal action brought by wronged sub-postmasters and their compensation.
The inquiry heard last week about claims from a whistleblower of a “disgusting” culture at the Post Office that “starts at the top with Nick”.
The Post Office Horizon IT scandal led to hundreds of postmasters being wrongly prosecuted for theft and false accounting due to discrepancies caused by IT bugs in the system.
Key Points
- Who is Post Office chief executive Nick Read?
- Read: I wasn’t told CEO role would involve dealing with litigation
- ‘Some postmasters were left behind in the pursuit of profit'
- Sub-postmasters are still paying off shortfalls from IT system errors in 2024
- Three individuals under further investigation by Post Office and agencies
17:01
Holly Bancroft
Thank you for following along with today’s blog of the Horizon IT inquiry. Today’s session has now ended and Post Office chief executive Nick Read will be back to continue his evidence tomorrow at 10am.
See the below posts for a record of today’s hearing.
Fujitsu says there ‘continue to be bugs and errors’ in Horizon system
16:11
Holly Bancroft
IT company Fujistu said in July this year that there “have been and there continue to be bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon system”.
In an email exchange between Fujistu CEO for Europe, Paul Patterson, and Post Office chief executive Nick Read, it was revealed that Fujistu have refused to provide expert witness statements in an ongoing criminal investigation against a Post Office branch.
Mr Patterson wrote to Mr Read: “As the Post Office is well aware, there have been and there continue to be bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon system. Further FSL [Fujistu] currently has, and previously had, access to branch transaction records.
“Your letter of 30 May 24 also acknowledges the existence of other matters (beyond the Horizon system) which could have operated to create innocent discrepancies.
“In simple terms, the Post Office is requesting that FSL give expert opinion evidence to be used in criminal proceedings against postmasters and Post Office workers… I consider the request to be entirely inappropriate, particularly in the light of the evidence being uncovered at the inquiry.”
Mr Read told the inquiry that he was trying to get Fujitsu to “cooperate with law enforcement agencies”.
“Our expectation where there is organised crime, fraud, issues of that nature, they would be very small in number and my expectation was that Fujistu would engage with law enforcement in those cases,” Mr Read explained.
Sir Wyn Williams addresses inquiry on ‘debate’ over the reliability of current Horizon systems
15:59
Holly Bancroft
Chair of the Horizon IT inquiry Sir Wyn Williams has said he is “bemused” by debate about the reliability of the data provided by the current Horizon systems used by the Post Office.
Refering the prior court judgement, he told the inquiry: “One of the conclusions that Mr Justice Fraser reached was that the version of Horizon that was actually in use at the time of the trial was reasonably fit for purpose... We are having a great deal of debate about the current version of Horizon, which doesn’t seem to fit with Justice Fraser’s findings.”
“The general tenor of what he was finding was as I have indicated. I have said that I regard what he said as sacrosanct,” he added.
Mr Read has told the inquiry that the Post Office had been dealing with a number of shortfalls in postmasters’ accounts which they couldn’t explain. Mr Read assured the inquiry that the Post Office would not prosecute postmasters over the apparently missing money, with questions raised about the ongoing reliability of the data they were receiving from the IT system.
City of London Police investigated Post Office branch in May this year
15:24
Holly Bancroft
The City of London Police carried out an investigation into a Post Office branch in May 2024, an email to chief executive Nick Read has revealed.
An email sent by IT company Fujistu to Nick Read on 17th May 2024, and read to the Horizon IT inquiry, revealed that Fujistu had “serious concerns” about potential prosecutions by the Post Office of postmasters.
Fujistu said they would “not support the Post Office to act against postmasters”, adding: “We will not provide support for any enforcement actions, taken by the Post Office against postmasters, whether civil or criminal, for alleged shortfalls, fraud or false accounting.”
However they added that Fujistu had recently become aware of a “recent investigation by the City of London Police into a Post Office branch”. They clarified that they would cooperate with the police in this case.
But they said that the Post Office still viewed itself as a “victim” in this case. “For the investigations team to act in this manner seems to disregard the serious criticisms raised in multiple judicial findings and indeed, exhibits a lack of respect to the ongoing inquiry”, the email said.
Mr Read said the overall tone of the letter was “incendiary and provocative”. He said it was not the case that the Post Office was pursuing postmasters for shortfalls.
Sub-postmasters are still paying off shortfalls from IT system errors in 2024
14:52
Holly Bancroft
Postmasters reported that they were still paying off shortfalls from Horizon system errors in late 2024, the inquiry has heard.
Chief executive Nick Read was presented with a recent survey of postmasters, which found that some postmasters reported they were still dipping into their own funds to match shortfalls.
Sir Wyn Williams said the survey represented hundreds of postmasters who are still paying their own money to fix unexplained shortfalls.
The survey had a low take up from postmasters, only 14 per cent of sub-postmasters responded, something that Mr Read suggested might be because the sub-postmasters don’t trust the Post Office.
He told the inquiry: “We have more to do to try and win the trust and confidence of postmasters.”
He was asked by lawyers at the inquiry: “How is it possible that in late 2024 the same issues with shortfalls are occurring with postmasters paying them off themselves?”
Mr Read responded: “I just don’t know why the postmasters feel the need to do that. We have been absolutely explicit when weve investigated shortfalls, when it cannot be established how and why that shortfall has occurred, we are not imposing upon postmasters to pay it themselves through their own money. Maybe we are not getting that message clearly through. But there is no enforcement by the Post Office in that situation at all.”
Nick Read: Post Office shouldn’t have been involved in compensation payments to postmasters
14:19
Holly Bancroft
Nick Read has told the inquiry that the Post Office should not have been part of the decision making process for giving compensation payments to wronged postmasters.
He said: “Redress should be done independently and I’ve been consistent with that view for 3-4 years now.”
He continued: “I do think that the confidence of the process and the independence of the process would have been enhanced if the Post Office had not [been a part of this].”
He added that the Treasury had a desire for the Post Office “to experience some of the discomfort caused” by the scandal. “You can understand why that might be the case, but I think it was missing the point entirely,” he said of the compensation scheme.
14:16
Holly Bancroft
The inquiry has returned after the lunch break. Lawyers have gone to a disclosure note from Peters and Peters solicitors from 24 August 2022.
The note shows the findings of a review into whether the Post Office security team were incentivised to crack down on postmasters they viewed as guilty.
The Peters and Peters review found no evidence that there was a bonus or incentivisation scheme linked to the number of prosecutions.
Former prosecutor Gary Thomas had said in an email shown to the inquiry this morning that the security team had been incentivised to prosecute sub-postmasters.
Recap: Nick Read said he wasn’t made aware of ‘enormity’ of Horizon scandal before taking on CEO job
13:57
Holly Bancroft
Nick Read will return to give evidence at 2pm. The chief executive of the Post Office is scheduled to give evidence at the Horizon IT inquiry for the next three days.
He told lawyers this morning that he was told not to “dig into the details of the past” when he took the role as CEO in 2019.
Giving evidence at the long-running Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, he said he was not made aware of the “scale and enormity” of the Horizon IT scandal before taking the top job.
Mr Read joined long after the events which sparked the Horizon scandal, whereby more than 900 subpostmasters were prosecuted for stealing, based on incorrect information from an IT system known as Horizon.
But when he became chief executive in 2019, litigation between a group of 555 subpostmasters and the Post Office was just coming to a head, in which the company agreed to pay £58 million in compensation.
Mr Read 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.”
He confirmed that it was the Post Office‘s general counsel Ben Foat, who is temporarily away from the business, who had told him that.
Read raised concerns about conflict of interest in team working on postmaster compensation
13:06
Holly Bancroft
Chief executive Nick Read raised concerns in February 2024 that a number of people working on Post Office remediation for wronged postmasters had conflicts of interest.
The Horizon IT inquiry was shown an email from Mr Read in which he raised concerns about why there were 35 ‘red marked’ people in the remediation unit.
Personnel were marked as red if they had occupied roles previously that had brought them into conflict or potential conflict with the work that they were undertaking.
The inquiry is now taking a break for lunch and will be back at 2pm.
Three individuals under further investigation by Post Office and agencies
12:32
Holly Bancroft
Chief executive Nick Read has told the Horizon IT inquiry that three individuals are under further investigation both by the Post Office and “external agencies” over allegations from former subpostmasters.
Mr Read said that the Post Office investigated a number of allegations made by postmasters during restorative justice hearings.
Mr Read explained: “There are 47 particular case studies. We have distilled those down to six individuals. Three of whom have no case to answer - we haven’t found corroborating evidence for the allegations.
“Three individuals are now under further investigation both by the Post Office and by external agencies.”
Mr Read did not go into further detail about which agencies these were or what the allegations made against these individuals are.
Read: I did not describe Post Office investigators as ‘untouchables’
12:21
Holly Bancroft
Nick Read has denied describing a group of Post Office investigators as “untouchables”.
Former chairman Henry Staunton had told the inquiry both in person and as part of written evidence that Mr Read had used the term twice - once in a private meeting and once in a more public meeting.
Mr Staunton’s claim was backed up by the testimony of Mr Ishmail and Mr Jacobs, who both testified that Mr Read had described these Post Office personnel as “untouchables”.
However when these claims were put to Mr Read he said each time that these testimonies were “incorrect”.
He added: “That is not an expression that is used in the organisation, that is not an expression that is familiar to the organisation.”
Mr Staunton had claimed that the Post Office still employed more than 40 investigators involved in the wrongful prosecution of sub-postmasters.
He said they were referred to internally as the “untouchables” because of their continued power.
Post Office management ‘don’t think postmasters are crooks'
12:08
Holly Bancroft
Nick Read has denied that “all Post Office management think postmasters are crooks”.
Speaking at the Horizon IT inquiry, Mr Read was presented with a number of concerns raised previously by sub-postmasters.
He told lawyers: “I certainly don’t think all management are of that opinion, in fact I absolutely don’t think that at all.”
He told the inquiry this morning: “There will be a view that not every quashed conviction will be innocent postmasters. I think that the majority of the organistion would agree that the action that has been taken is absolutely the right action, whether there are guilty postmaters that will be exonerated is really no longer an issue.”
Inquiry hears evidence from former prosecutor of postmasters
11:43
Holly Bancroft
The inquiry lawyers are now examining an email sent by former Post Office prosecutor Gary Thomas to Nick Read.
Mr Thomas claimed in his email that there were “targets for prosecutions and financial recovery targets” for those in the Post Office investigations team.
In his email, Mr Thomas said:“We even had a proceeds of crime unit within Post Office Ltd that ensured some of these individuals lost their homes and families.”
He continued:“My yearly objectives that were bonus worthy at the time were based on numbers of successful prosecutions and recovery amounts of money to the business.
“I had some instances of these postmasters committing suicide, which now sits somewhat on my conscious because of my employer. How do you think I deal with this and now actually sleep at night now knowing my actions that were backed and supported by my employer has affected the said postmasters but also the individuals you employed to conduct this role.
“Can I ask the question and enquiry why we have all been completely cast aside and left with not so much as a letter of communication or an apology whatsover?”
Mr Read has said he has “no recollection” of the correspondence from Mr Thomas.
Mr Read said there was a “lack of curiorisity” to find out if Mr Thomas’s claims were correct shown in the email exchanges.
‘Some postmasters were left behind in the pursuit of profit'
11:19
Holly Bancroft
Nick Read has said that postmasters were “left behind in the pursuit of profit” as the Post Office struggled financially.
Mr Read told the Horizon IT inquiry that there was a “drive for network transformation and commercial sustainability” from 2016-2019.
He added: “In that drive, I believed that postmasters had been left behind.”
He referenced “the move from fixed fees for postmasters to variable payments” as one of the ways that postmasters were left behind.
Mr Read said: “It was my intention to refocus the organisation around...the relationship with the postmaster and its local communities. That was slightly at odds with where the [government] officials were, which was to ensure that we didn’t continue to spend money on the Post Office.
“I think there was an attitude to ringfence and ensure that the Post Office was a standalone business, without thinking through the implications of that for the postmasters,” he added.
Mr Read said that by 2020 “there was a growing need and desire by those who had been impacted by the scandal to get to the truth.”
Mr Read said that closure would not be achieved for the Post Office victims if the inquiry merely looked forward to assess how the scandal could not happen again. Permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, Alex Chisholm, had suggested a shorter inquiry, Mr Read said.
Nick Read: I was told not to dig into the past
10:50
Holly Bancroft
Nick Read has told the inquiry that when he joined the Post Office in 2019 the issue of postmasters’ prosecutions was in the past. He was told: “Nothing like this is happening [now] or could happen - we need to look forward”.
The prosecutions ended in 2015, but a significant judgement was handed down to the Post Office in 2019 by Justice Fraser. The judgement detailed how the Post Office needed to change, and how it should offer compensation to wronged postmasters.
Mr Read added: “I don’t think the scale and enormity of the scandal was brought to life before me because there wasn’t a realisation in the business of what needed to be done.”
Mr Read said when he joined in 2019 the Post Office legal team had just started work to understand the implications of losing in the courts to the sub-postmasters.
Mr Read, reflecting on the beginning of his role, said: “There were a multitude of different priorities that were required in the first 4-6 weeks.
“I was told that I did not need to dig into the details of what had happened at the Post Office in the past.”
‘I didn’t realise the scale of injustice that postmasters faced'
10:36
Holly Bancroft
Nick Read has told the Horizon IT inquiry that he didn’t realise the scale of the injustice that the postmasters faced when he took on his role as CEO.
In a statement to the inquiry, he said: “It is clear to me now that I did not have a proper appreciation at this time of the scope or magnitude of the injustice that the postmasters had faced.
“My understanding was that I was joining a business that was challenged.”
He told the inquiry that he was determined to “shift the culture” at the Post Office, saying: “The Post Office would not exist without postmasters and from my first day as CEO I was determined to make this shift in the cultural mindset of the organisation. The findings from the litigation confirmed that was the right direction.”
However he said that he “didn’t need to dig into the details of what had happened at Post Office in the past as this conduct had ended.”
“I didn’t have experience of managing litigation,.. a compensation scheme, or public inquiry”, he told lawyers.
Mr Read said “there was a degree of denial” following the Post Office’s loss in the courts against the sub-postmasters.
Nick Read: I wasn’t told CEO role would involve dealing with litigation
10:27
Holly Bancroft
Nick Read has told the inquiry that, when he was interviewed for his role as Chief Executive, the postmaster litigation and need for huge IT overhaul were not mentioned.
In a witness statement, Mr Read said: “The job specification did not mention the litigation, and as far as I recall it was not mentioned during the interview process.
“The job specification also did not state that Post Office needed to oversee a large scale and complex IT transformation project…As far as I recall, this was also not mentioned to me in the interview process.
“I had no indication that a significant part of my role would be a profound cultural change of the scale needed, dealing with the litigation or its implications, or in delivering a large-scale IT transformation”.
During Mr Read’s time at the Post Office, he had to move the company away from the Horizon IT system to an alternative process.
10:18
Holly Bancroft
Post Office chief executive Nick Read has begun his testimony at the Horizon IT inquiry.
He is being questioned over the nature of this witness statements, some of which are given in his official role at the Post Office and one of which is given on a personal basis.
Mr Read is also being questioned on his previous business experience before he joined the Post Office. He had worked as the chief executive officer of Nisa Retail previously.
Sir Wyn Williams tells inquiry that a former sub-postmaster passed away last week
10:10
Holly Bancroft
Sir Wyn Williams has opened the inquiry this morning by saying that a former sub-postmaster Mrs Gillian Blakey has passed away.
She was a sub-postmaster in Lincolnshire. During her period there, shortfalls appeared in the accounts due to faulty data from the Horizon IT system.
Her husband was prosecuted over the faults and she lost her job.
She had not received the additional compensation to which she was entitled, Sir Wyn Williams said.
How long with Nick Read give evidence for?
10:07
Holly Bancroft
Post Office chief executive Nick Read will face three days of grilling at the Horizon IT inquiry.
His first day is today, starting at 10am and going on till 16:30, and he will be back on Thursday and Friday as well.
Calls for independent body to handle compensation schemes
10:03
Holly Bancroft
An independent body must be set up to handle compensation schemes for UK state scandals to stop causing further distress for victims, experts have said.
People affected by the Windrush and Post Office scandals are being re-traumatised by the schemes designed to offer redress, according to researchers from King’s College London.
Shaila Pal, director and a supervising solicitor at King’s Legal Clinic, who carried out that research, said victims’ voices are not currently being heard.
“These people have been failed by the state and it is unacceptable that schemes designed to compensate them are further adding to the damage already caused,” Ms Pal said.
Did Nick Read push for a bigger bonus?
09:34
Holly Bancroft
Post Office chairman Henry Staunton told the inquiry last week that CEO Nick Read was unhappy with his pay and one of Mr Staunton’s first acts as chairman was to write to the secretary of state to ask for it to be increased.
At the time in November 2022, Mr Read would have received salary plus compensation of £788,500 in total. He had wanted to increase his total earnings to £1,125,180 - a salary that Mr Staunton admitted was “astonishing”.
Mr Staunton told the inquiry: “It was obviously a massive salary increase in a company which wasn’t a normal corporate. It was paid for by the public purse”.
The request was refused by then-secretary of state Grant Shapps.
Who is Post Office chief executive Nick Read?
09:27
Holly Bancroft
Post Office chief executive Nick Read has been at the Post Office for five years. He is due to step down in March 2025 and has taken time away from his role to prepare for the Horizon IT inquiry.
Interim chief operating officer Neil Brocklehurst has been filling in as an acting chief executive.
Mr Read has previously appeared before MPs to defend his management of the Post Office. However in February, the business and trade committee expressed a lack of confidence in his leadership, accusing him of giving misleading evidence.
Over the course of the inquiry and parliamentary hearings, Mr Read’s evidence has often clashed with that of former Post Office chairman Henry Stauton.
Mr Read had been investigated over misconduct allegations but an external report, released earlier this year, cleared him of wrongdoing.
