The outgoing boss of the Post Office has said its leadership were “part in denial, part in paralysis” about issues with the IT system behind the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters when he joined in 2019.
Nick Read said bosses were instead focussed on the company’s financial performance, adding he was not made aware of the “scale and enormity” of the Horizon IT scandal.
He told an inquiry that when a High Court judgement was handed down that found serious bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon system, there were “no urgent calls or panicked discussions” among senior leadership.
He agreed with a lawyer’s suggestion that bosses were “living in something of a dream world”.
He said it would be “impossible not to conclude that”, when asked by the inquiry’s lead counsel Jason Beer KC.
Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted when faulty Horizon accounting software made it look as though money was missing from branches.
But in 2017, some 555 sub-postmasters took legal action against the Post Office. In 2019, it agreed to pay them £58m in compensation, but much of the money went on legal fees.
The High Court judgement found the Horizon IT software contained a large number of software defects and was not “remotely robust”
Mr Read told the inquiry that after the High Court judgement was handed down in 2019, he started working with Post Office lawyers so there was “more of a realisation from my perspective” compared with the other members of the leadership team.
Mr Read, who will step down from his role next year, is giving evidence to the inquiry into the scandal for three days.
He said he would be stepping back from front-line duties next year to give his “entire attention” to the final stage of the inquiry, which first started in 2022 and has heard evidence from scores of victims and executives.
When he took over Mr Read was tasked with turning around the loss-making Post Office at a time when the organisation was facing a crisis of faith as the scale of the Horizon scandal came to light.