Post Office boss to step back to prepare for inquiry

Post Office boss Nick Read appeared before a Business Select Committee earlier this year

Post Office boss Nick Read is stepping back from front-line duties so he can prepare for the "critical" next stage of the Horizon IT inquiry.

In a note to staff the chief executive officer said he wanted to give his "entire attention" to the final hearings in September, which come as the company faces intense scrutiny over its role in the scandal.

The inquiry is scrutinising the failings that led to more than 900 sub-postmasters being wrongly prosecuted for stealing between 1999 and 2015 because of incorrect information from an IT system called Horizon.

The next and final stage will focus on "current practice" at the Post Office and "future recommendations" for the business.

The Post Office's deputy chief executive, Owen Woodley, will step in as acting CEO until the end of August as Mr Read prepares.

"It is vitally important that we demonstrate the changes we have made and give confidence to the inquiry and the country at large that ‘nothing like this could happen again’,” Mr Read said in the note to staff.

Mr Read joined the company in 2019, long after the prosecutions, and has not appeared before the inquiry before.

But earlier this year he appeared at a separate Business Select Committee where he was accused by MPs of a lack of knowledge about the scandal.

In February it emerged Mr Read was under investigation for misconduct over an issue unrelated to Horizon, but he was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

The Post Office said the claims against him had been "discredited" and that Mr Read had the "full" backing of the board.

The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry began in 2022 and has heard evidence from scores of victims and executives who worked at the Post Office during the scandal, including former boss Paula Vennells.

Ms Vennells has since forfeited her CBE for “bringing the honours system into disrepute” over her handling of the Horizon crisis.

The inquiry is currently in phase 6, which ends on 31 July, and will conclude with phase 7 starting in September, with hearings focused on "current practices" and "recommendations for the future".

A Post Office spokesman told the BBC: “Appropriate preparation ahead of a corporate witness statement is important and enables the business to best support the inquiry’s vital work.

"We are fortunate to have a strong senior executive group that ensures the business is well-placed to support postmasters over the busy summer trading period.”