Ex-Post Office boss claims he was told to stall on compensation until election
The ousted former chair of the Post Office has claimed a senior civil servant told him to stall on giving compensation to victims of the Horizon scandal until after the election.
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch last month removed Henry Staunton from the role he had held since December 2022.
The Horizon IT system ruined the lives of hundreds of Post Office workers when it mistakenly made it look like money was missing from their branches. Postmasters were wrongly blamed for the shortfalls and made to cover the losses, with more than 900 convicted including some who were put in prison.
So far around £160million has been paid in compensation to 2,700 people through three different schemes, which works out at an average of £59,000 per claimant. Victims have complained about delays and warned that the system is too bureaucratic.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, Mr Staunton said he believed the Government should offer wronged sub-postmasters £1million each. “The public believes this is terrible - and frankly, if we paid more than we might do in a hard-bitten law case, I don’t think the public would mind one jot,” he said.
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Mr Staunton described the three compensation schemes as “terribly bureaucratic”, “terribly pedantic”, “terribly unhelpful” and “terribly unsympathetic”. “I thought, we haven’t got this right, we’re trying to make it difficult [to claim compensation],” he added.
The former WHSmith executive suggested officials in Whitehall had encouraged him to hold back compensation. “Early on, I was told by a fairly senior person to stall on spending on compensation and on the replacement of Horizon, and to limp, in quotation marks - I did a file note on it - limp into the election,” he said.
“It was not an anti-postmaster thing, it was just straight financials. I didn’t ask, because I said, ‘I’m having no part of it – I’m not here to limp into the election, it’s not the right thing to do by postmasters.’ The word ‘limp’ gives you a snapshot of where they were.”
Former sub-postmaster Michael Rudkin, who was one of the victims of the scandal, said: "Ministers and people in government are slowly strangling and killing sub-postmasters." He told Times Radio: "This government needs to be punished at the ballot box."
Labour's Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: "These are incredibly serious allegations. The Horizon scandal is widely accepted to be one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history. Under no circumstances should compensation to victims be delayed and to do so for party political purposes would be a further insult to sub-postmasters. The Labour Party has called for all sub-postmasters to be exonerated and compensation paid swiftly so that victims can begin to draw this awful chapter to a close."
The Government said there was no evidence to back up Mr Staunton’s claims. A spokesman said: “We utterly refute these allegations. The Government has sped up compensation to victims, and consistently encouraged postmasters to come forward with their claims. To suggest any actions or conversations happened to the contrary is incorrect. In fact, upon appointment, Mr Staunton was set concrete objectives, in writing, to focus on reaching settlements with claimants - clear evidence of the Government’s intent.”
Alan Bates last month rejected a “cruel” and “derisory” compensation offer from the Government, which he said was only about a sixth of what he requested. The former sub-postmaster’s long fight for justice was shown in the ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office.
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