Former Post Office chairman Henry Staunton has released a note he claims proves he was told to stall compensation payments to postmasters.
His memo records a top civil servant saying “now was not the time for dealing with long-term issues” and they should “hobble” up to the election.
The government says she was referring to the state of the Post Office finances, not payouts for postmasters.
The government says she was referring to the state of the Post Office finances, not payouts for postmasters.
The row between Mr Staunton and the government first erupted at the weekend when the former Post Office chair – who was sacked in January – said in an explosive interview with the Sunday Times that he had been told to slow down compensation payments victims.
Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were wrongly prosecuted after faults with Horizon made it look like money was missing from their branches.
The government has promised to quash convictions and pay compensation, but concerns have been raised over the speed and complexity in victims securing financial redress, with just 33 claims fully settled out of the 938 postmasters convicted.
In January last year, Mr Staunton emailed himself and colleagues, including Post Office chief executive Nick Read,notes of a conversation he had with Sarah Munby, then the most senior official at the Department for Business.
In the memo, he laid out the serious financial challenges facing the Post Office, which included the growing bill from the Horizon scandal.
Former Post Office chairman Henry Staunton has released a note he claims proves he was told to stall compensation payments to postmasters.
The government says she was referring to the state of the Post Office finances, not payouts for postmasters.
His memo records a top civil servant saying “now was not the time for dealing with long-term issues” and they should “hobble” up to the election.
The row between Mr Staunton and the government first erupted at the weekend when the former Post Office chair – who was sacked in January – said in an explosive interview with the Sunday Times that he had been told to slow down compensation payments victims.
The government says she was referring to the state of the Post Office finances, not payouts for postmasters.
The government says she was referring to the state of the Post Office finances, not payouts for postmasters.
The row between Mr Staunton and the government first erupted at the weekend when the former Post Office chair – who was sacked in January – said in an explosive interview with the Sunday Times that he had been told to slow down compensation payments victims.
Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were wrongly prosecuted after faults with Horizon made it look like money was missing from their branches.
The government has promised to quash convictions and pay compensation, but concerns have been raised over the speed and complexity in victims securing financial redress, with just 33 claims fully settled out of the 938 postmasters convicted.
In January last year, Mr Staunton emailed himself and colleagues, including Post Office chief executive Nick Read,notes of a conversation he had with Sarah Munby, then the most senior official at the Department for Business.
In the memo, he laid out the serious financial challenges facing the Post Office, which included the growing bill from the Horizon scandal.
#Henry #Staunton #ExPost #Office #chair #escalates #compensation #row
Note:- (Not all news on the site expresses the point of view of the site, but we transmit this news automatically and translate it through programmatic technology on the site and not from a human editor. The content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.))
