Postmasters demand Tories are punished at ballot box for compensation delays

18 February 2024 , 15:46

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Michael Rudkin, whose wife Susan was wrongly convicted of stealing money, said the Government needs to be punished by voters

Postmasters are demanding the Government be punished at the ballot box after it was accused of secretly pushing to delay compensation.

Ex-Post Office chairman Henry Staunton has claimed a senior official had told him to stall on payments to victims of the Horizon IT scandal until after the election. In a bombshell interview, the ousted boss urged ministers to finally give postmasters including Alan Bates the compensation they deserve.

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.

Former postmasters today voiced their anger at Mr Staunton’s claim that a senior civil servant had instructed him to hold up payments when he started as chairman just over a year ago.

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Christopher Head said he was not “surprised” as he believed the Government was always “pulling the strings”. The 36-year-old became Britain’s youngest postmaster when he took over his local branch in West Bolden near Sunderland in 2006, but was driven out of business after he was wrongly blamed for a £88,000 shortfall.

Former postmaster Michael Rudkin was portrayed by Shaun Dooley in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office (ITV)

Mr Head said that victims of the scandal were being retraumatised by the Government’s failure to even pay proper compensation now. He rejected an offer in December that covered less than 15% of his claim. He told the Mirror: "The trauma that these people have been through, whether they've been to prison or not. And the problem is they start hanging on every word of the Government and the Prime Minister that they are going to be given full and fair compensation.

“And then when they actually do the complete opposite and don't match those words with actions, they are simply retraumatising these people all over again. You are saying one thing, but delivering something completely different. They're being gaslit and lied to on a continuous basis. These people are mentally on the edge.”

Mr Head added: “Obviously their argument always is that we have to be cautious of taxpayer money and that is absolutely right. But the fact is, by kicking the can down the road, by delaying, by using lawyers to make things extremely difficult and complicated, the only thing that that does is massively increase the cost to the taxpayer. We know that the postmasters will eventually - whenever that might be, whether that's a year or another five years - will get the fair and full compensation they are due because somebody will simply have to put it right.”

Mr Head, who has always voted for the Conservatives since he was 18, said he will not be able to support the party at this year’s election.

Michael Rudkin, another victim, 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… We're now 24 years on. How long is this going to take?" Mr Rudkin, a former executive officer of the National Federation of Sub-postmasters, was portrayed in the ITV drama Alan Bates Vs The Post Office. His wife Susan was wrongly convicted of stealing money.

Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch last month removed Mr Staunton from his role as Post Office chairman, which he had held since December 2022. In an interview with the Sunday Times, the former WHSmith executive said he believed the Government should offer wronged sub-postmasters £1million each and described the three existing compensation schemes as “terribly bureaucratic”, “terribly pedantic”, “terribly unhelpful” and “terribly unsympathetic”.

Mr Staunton claimed a senior civil servant had encouraged him to hold back compensation when he took over as chairman. “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.”

The Government said there was no evidence to back up Mr Staunton’s claim, which it said it “utterly refute[d]”.

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Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, who is expected to give a statement in the Commons on Monday, said: "Henry Staunton had a lack of grip getting justice for postmasters. The serious concerns over his conduct were the reasons I asked him to step down. That he chose to run to the media with made up anecdotes and a series of falsehoods, confirms I made the correct decision."

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."

John Stevens