Post Office boss told not to ‘dig into the past’ by top lawyer, inquiry hears

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Post Office chief executive Nick Read has said he was told not to “dig into the details of the past” by its leading lawyer when stepping into the role in 2019. I don’t think the scale or enormity of the scandal was brought to life for me Nick Read, Post Office chief executive Mr Read said in a witness statement discussed at the inquiry: “Private prosecutions were presented to me as a historic issue that had ceased before 2015 and that I did not need to dig into the details of what had happened at Post Office in the past as this conduct had ended.” He confirmed that it was the Post Office’s general counsel Ben Foat, who is temporarily away from the business, who had told him that. He wrote: “My recollection is that it was only in 2020 when there seemed to be a groundswell of opinion that Post Office had serious questions to answer about its previous mistreatment of postmasters that the senior leadership and board started to understand the potential scale of the crisis.” Furthermore, Mr Read shed light on the opinion of the organisation after the convictions of hundreds of postmasters were quashed earlier this year. “The majority of the organisation would agree that the action that has been taken is absolutely the right action and whether there are guilty postmasters that have been exonerated really is no longer an issue.” The boss, who recently announced that he would be stepping down as chief executive next year, said he felt it was “astonishing” that the Post Office itself was involved in administering compensation for wrongly-prosecuted postmasters.