Former Post Office chairman Henry Staunton has said he’s the victim of a “smear campaign” after a fallout with business secretary Kemi Badenoch.
Ms Bandenoch accused Mr Staunton, who she fired, of making false claims after he alleged that a senior civil servant advised him to slow down compensation payments to victims of the Horizon scandal so that the government could “limp into the election”.
“I’ve spoken up on matters of genuine public concern, have been fired, and am now subject to a smear campaign,” he told MPs on the business and trade committee.
In an explosive revelation, Mr Staunton also alleged that the current Post Office CEO threatened to resign over a HR investigation into his own conduct.
Mr Staunton said Post Office chief executive Nick Read had fallen out with the HR director “and she produced a document that was 80 pages in length” and there was just one paragraph in there about his own conduct and use of “politically incorrect comments”.
Mr Staunton said Mr Read was “really quite upset” and threatened to resign a number of times.
But just an hour before Mr Staunton’s testimony, Mr Read had denied - under oath - that he had ever having tried to resign.
