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Post Office chief executive Nick Read has been cleared “of all the misconduct allegations” made against him following an external probe, according to the state-owned company, after he was publicly accused of bullying.
“Following several interviews and examination of documents by the barrister, Nick has been exonerated of all the misconduct allegations and has the full and united backing of the board to continue to lead the business,” the Post Office said in a statement on Wednesday, without releasing the report.
The investigation into Read’s conduct came after a 12-page “Speak Up” document was submitted to the Post Office in September, setting out a series of allegations regarding conduct within the organisation.
The Post Office subsequently appointed barrister Marianne Tutin as an external investigator to lead the probe.
The investigation became public in February after Henry Staunton, chair of the Post Office between 2022 and 2024, told MPs that Read was the focus of a HR review over which the chief executive had threatened to resign.
In a follow-up letter to the House of Commons business and trade committee last month, Staunton accused Read of bullying the business’s former human resources director.
Jane Davies, who was the Post Office human resources director at the time the concerns about Read’s conduct were raised, confirmed in March that she was the author of the “Speak Up” document.
“The integrity of that Speak Up process relies on confidentiality for whistleblowers and therefore we will not be providing further detail on this or any other Speak Up investigation,” the Post Office said on Wednesday. “It is unacceptable that this specific process was referred to in the public domain.”
The company added that Tutin had made some recommendations on improvements to the Post Office’s processes, which were ‘helpful’ and would be addressed.
The investigation into Read, in post since 2019, is the latest development in the long-running Post Office scandal.
It came to a head in recent months after a public outcry following an ITV dramatisation of the affair, in which more than 900 sub-postmasters were convicted in cases involving data from the Post Office’s faulty Horizon IT system. Some 700 cases were brought by the Post Office itself.
In March the government introduced unprecedented legislation to exonerate affected sub-postmasters in England and Wales en masse, bypassing the courts. The government hopes the bill will pass into law by the end of July.
Staunton was sacked as chair in January by business secretary Kemi Badenoch, after he said he had been told by a civil servant to stall payments to Horizon victims ahead of the general election — a claim denied by the government.
The Department for Business and Trade said: “Ministers are pleased to confirm that the independent barrister has cleared . . . Nick Read of the allegations against him and he remains in post and has the confidence of the government.”
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