Former Post Office chief Henry Staunton looks increasingly isolated in his claim that he was told to delay compensation to victims of the Horizon scandal after a second top official backed up Kemi Badenoch’s denial.
Giving evidence at the House of Commons Business Committee, Carl Creswell – director of business resilience at Ms Badenoch’s department – was asked whether Mr Staunton had been asked to slow down compensation payments to sub-postmasters.
Mr Creswell, the official in charge of Post Office policy on Horizon, replied: “You would have thought someone would have mentioned it to me if that were the intent!”
He emphatically added: “Not at all.”
The slap down of Mr Staunton came after both Ms Badenoch and the former BEIS Permanent Secretary Sarah Munby, rejected his allegations.
Last week, Ms Munby wrote a rare public letter to Mr Staunton denying that any such instruction to delay compensation was made.
She added that the funding discussed in the meeting cited by Mr Staunton was in fact operational funding, not compensation funding which is ringfenced.
Mr Creswell backed up Ms Munby, saying they’d worked very closely together to secure the funding needed for the myriad compensation schemes.
He added that the assertion from Mr Staunton about delays was “completely incorrect”, and that all discussions he’d had with Ms Munby and ministers “have all been about ‘how can we pay out this money more quickly’”.
The top civil servant also backed up Ms Badenoch’s claim that there had been bullying allegations against Mr Staunton when he was sacked as Post Office Chairman.
Mr Creswell told the committee that he had been “explicitly” told officials would resign if Mr Staunton had not been removed from the Post Office.
He revealed he was told the claim by one individual on behalf of two members of the board.
Mr Creswell said: “The level of anxiety about Mr Staunton’s behaviour was such that we might see resignations from the board.”
This claim backs up what Kemi Badenoch told the House of Commons on February 19, who revealed Mr Staunton was being investigated for bullying at the time he was sacked.
Mr Staunton later denied this, claiming Ms Badenoch’s Commons statement had been “the first time the existence of such allegations have been mentioned”.
His office claimed he was “not aware of any aspect of his conduct which could give rise to such allegations”.
They said: “Such behaviour would be totally out of character.”
The evidence from Mr Creswell, in addition to the letter from Ms Munby, increasingly suggests that Ms Badenoch’s interpretation of events is more accurate than Mr Staunton’s.
Ms Badenoch previously argued the former Post Office chief had made the allegations during an interview with the Sunday Times as part of a vendetta against her for sacking him.
