Post Office boss to step down from role next year

Post Office boss to step down from role next yearHouses of Commons/UK ParliamentPost Office boss Nick Read will step down from his role next year, the company has said. The chief executive had already stepped back from front-line duties saying he wanted to give his "entire attention" to the final stage of the inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal. The inquiry is scrutinising failings over the wrongful prosecutions of hundreds of sub-postmasters based on faulty accounting software which made it look as though money was missing from branches. On Wednesday, the Post Office said Mr Read would depart in March 2025.Mr Read described it as a "great privilege" to have worked as Post Office chief executive in an "extraordinarily challenging time for the business and for postmasters". "There remains much to be done for this great UK institution but the journey to

reset the relationship with postmasters is well under way and our work to support justice and redress for postmasters will continue," he added. Mr Read joined the company in 2019, long after the prosecutions sub-postmasters had finished, and has not yet appeared b

efore the inquiry. The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry began in 2022 and has heard evidence from scores of victims as well as some executives who worked at the Post Office when the prosecutions were taking place between 1999 and 2015. Sir Alan Bates, who led the campaign on behalf of the wrongly prosecuted sub-postmasters, said he was not surprised by Mr Read\'s departure. "When I knew he\'d taken seven weeks\' leave – in theory to prepare for the inquiry – I thought he\'d taken seven weeks off to find a new job," he said. Liam Byrne, chair of parliament\'s Business Committee, said Mr Read had made "the right decision" for himself and the Post Office in standing down. Speaking to the BBC, he said the Post Office now needed to "move on". He said Mr Read had been dealing with "a lot of legacies from the past but frankly at times there have been questions about how tightly things have been gripped". "Innocent victims" had paid the price he said.\'He hasn\'t achieved anything\'