Post Office Chairman says staff who helped prosecute postmasters should go

Investigators who helped wrongly prosecute hundreds of sub-postmasters should not still be working for the Post Office, according to the organisation’s chairman.

Nigel Railton made the comments before a session of the Business and Trade Committee on Tuesday.

Asked by the committee’s chair, Liam Byrne, as to whether the Post Office can drive through “cultural change” if it continues to employ such investigators, Mr Railton said: “No.”

“Am I doing something about it? Yes,” Mr Railton added.

Mr Railton’s comments comes after ITV News learned that detectives investigating the Horizion IT scandal had been made aware of at least two cases of potential criminal activity by Post Office employees.

It is not known who, or what, the referrals relate to.

The Post Office set up an internal probe, called Project Phoenix, in 2023 to review allegations made by sub-postmasters about the conduct of Post Office investigators who handled their cases.

Mr Railton, during Tuesday’s hearing, was also asked for his thoughts on the cost of Project Phoenix.

Mr Byrne said: “Project Phoenix you’ll have seen in the news, I think the news was reporting that it cost about £880,000 in cost of the Post Office investigating sub-postmater complaints against investigators. Was that a good use of Post Office money, that £880,000?”

“I haven’t got the details, but that’s an awful amount of money to spend on an investigation,” Mr Railton replied.

Mr Byrne said: “So it doesn’t sound like it was a good use of money to you?”

Mr Railton replied: “Doesn’t sound like it, no.”

At the height of the Horizon scandal, sub-postmasters accused by the Post Office of theft were subject to police-style interviews carried out by its own internal investigators working for its security team.

Interviews and reports carried out by these internal investigators were then used as evidence to help convict sub-postmasters.

Dozens of sub-postmasters have made complaints about the conduct of the investigators the Post Office sent to interview them, accusing them of bullying, intimidation and omitting evidence from their interviews regarding faults with the Horizon IT system, which were ultimately to blame for money going missing.

More than 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Horizon accounting software made it look as though money was missing from their accounts.

Hundreds are still awaiting compensation despite the previous government announcing that those who have had convictions quashed are eligible for £600,000 payouts.