Victims of Post Office scandal want to see more heads roll as chairman ousted

Janet Skinner, who was jailed for nine months in 2007 over an alleged shortfall of £59,000 from her Hull post office, said she did not understand the reasons for the sacking of chairman Henry Staunton, who had been in the role for only a year. “It needs to go a little bit deeper than him,” she added.

On Friday Fujitsu’s former UK head Michael Keegan stepped down from his role at the Cabinet Office.

Ms Skinner, whose conviction was quashed with 38 others by the Court of Appeal in April 2021, said: “I think it is the domino effect, one will fall and they will keep on falling.

“Either they will do the honourable thing and step down or they will be pushed.”

Lee Castleton, from Scarborough, was was played by Will Mellor in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office, said it was the “start of the slicing away of the rot”, adding: “I just hope that blade cuts very deeply.”

Mr Castleton, who was bankrupted after a two-year legal fight, pursued for £321,000 costs by the Post Office, added his voice to growing calls for Lord Arbuthnot to be appointed as chairman of the state-owned business.

The former MP for North East Hampshire became involved in the campaign for justice for subpostmasters when his constituent, Jo Hamilton, was charged.

He applied for the job of chair of the Post Office when it came up in 2022. However it was Mr Staunton, who had been chairman for nine years of WH Smith, who was appointed to the state-owned company. “I think Lord Arbuthnot would be fantastic. He is the right man, in the right place and time for the job,” said Mr Castleton.

Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch would not be drawn on whether there will be other departures from the board of directors.

She told broadcasters there needed to be a “change of personnel” and it “just wasn’t working” as the company remains under heightened scrutiny over the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of subpostmasters.

Ms Badenoch said: “The issues that the Post Office have go well beyond the Horizon scandal, so this wasn’t just about Horizon and the ongoing inquiry into the Post Office; it’s about the Post Office as an entity and the governance of it.

“There is a board, there have been disagreements across the board, and my view is that sometimes you just need a different person to deal with different issues.”

Ms Badenoch said she had a phone call with him at the weekend and they had “parted ways with mutual consent”, but later added that she had asked him to go.

He had been tasked with leading the board of directors as the business reels from the fallout of what has been described as the UK’s biggest miscarriage of justice.

More than 700 branch managers were prosecuted by the Post Office between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Horizon accounting software made it look as though money was missing from their branches.

Hundreds of subpostmasters and subpostmistresses are still awaiting compensation despite the Government announcing that those who have had convictions quashed are eligible for £600,000 payouts. It comes at one of the most turbulent points in the company’s history, with a statutory inquiry into the saga under way and public outrage following the ITV drama.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has also announced blanket legislation to exonerate those wrongly prosecuted after the TV series returned the scandal to the spotlight. Labour questioned the move to oust Mr Staunton at the weekend and said ministers must explain what had happened.