Post Office boss Nick Read accused of bullying female HR director
Nick Read, the Post Office boss, “bullied” a female HR director and treated her like a “pain in the a---”, the company’s former chairman has claimed in a letter to MPs.
Henry Staunton, who headed the Post Office between December 2022 and January 2024, made further claims about chief executive Mr Read – who is under investigation for his conduct in the role – including that a senior female team member felt unfairly targeted by him.
Mr Staunton said a document named a “Speak Up” dossier, compiled by the HR director, which contained allegations about Mr Read, was “ an expression” of her frustration at the upper management.
In a letter to the business and trade committee, Mr Staunton said the director in question had spoken to him about how she “felt that she was being treated by Read and his henchmen as a ‘pain in the a---’.”
Mr Staunton also said that the female HR director had “previously come to [him] on numerous occasions for advice on how to deal with Read’s behaviour” which “in her, and [his] view, constituted bullying as demonstrated in detail in the appendices to the Speak Up dossier”.
The letter claims that the woman, whom The Telegraph previously revealed was Jane Davies, tried to tackle the “toxic culture” at the top of the Post Office while Mr Read made complaints about his salary.
Ms Davies, who served as chief people officer for less than a year, felt she was being singled out because of this, it is alleged.
It is yet another embarrassment for the Post Office, which continues to deal with negative press in the wake of the Horizon scandal.
More than 900 sub-postmasters and mistresses were wrongfully prosecuted as a result of Fujitsu’s bug-ridden Horizon software which produced fictional shortfalls on accounts.
The letter, which the former chairman said was to clarify remarks made at a business and trade select committee meeting last week, was sent to chairman Liam Byrne on Monday and published online.
Mr Staunton claimed that his memory had been jogged after recovering “contemporaneous records” which provided him with “further detail, which I was not able to recall from memory alone” at the time of the committee.
It is the latest intervention Mr Staunton has made since he first told The Sunday Times that the Government had wanted to stall compensation payments for Horizon victims before the next election.
His interview caused a row between Mr Staunton and Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, who branded his interview as being “full of lies”.
‘Unhappy with his salary’
MPs and the public were first told of the Speak Up dossier last week by Mr Staunton.
He also told of how Mr Read had been “unhappy with his salary” and considered resigning on multiple occasions, a claim Mr Read denied.
Over the weekend it was reported that the chief executive demanded a salary of more than £1 million and repeatedly threatened to quit, according to The Sunday Times.
In his letter to the committee, Mr Staunton also confirmed that he himself was subject to an investigation launched by the Post Office over “politically incorrect comments” he was said to have made, which he denied.
He claimed they originated from a conversation he had with the HR director about “obstacles” he had encountered in his attempts to promote diversity for a previous employer, not the Post Office.
He claimed a former female colleague had told him she did not want women to work on her board because they were “pains in the a---s” to work with.
Ms Davies was making reference to this anecdote when she repeated the phrase, according to Mr Staunton.
In his letter, he told Mr Byrne that Ms Davies had “made reference” to this conversation in her Speak Up dossier without naming the chairman and “in an entirely different context”.
Mr Staunton wrote: “Her purpose, as she communicated to me, was to express what she felt was the attitude of the chief executive to her as the only woman in the senior management team: she felt that she was being treated by Read and his henchmen as a “pain [in] the a---” for focusing on tackling the toxic culture rather than prioritising Read’s salary.
“Not only did she not intend to attribute that remark to me, but she specifically did not include me in her complaint, for the very simple reason that her issue with respect to her full complaint entirely related to Nick Read’s conduct towards her and had nothing to do with me.”
Mr Staunton added: “Indeed, she had no doubt that I was fully supportive of her position, and she had previously come to me on numerous occasions for advice on how to deal with Read’s behaviour towards her which in her, and my view, constituted bullying as demonstrated in detail in the appendices to the Speak Up dossier.”
Post Office missed document deadlines
Mr Byrne and the committee had been demanding to see the Speak Up dossier since last week and The Post Office had missed several deadlines to hand it over.
On Tuesday Ben Tidswell, the Post Office’s senior independent director, suggested that the document was most likely a 12-page whistleblowing Speak Up report.
He agreed to provide it to the MPs before 9am on Wednesday.
Ms Davies is understood to be suing for unfair dismissal. She told the Telegraph last week that she was unable to provide any comment for legal reasons.
Last week Mr Read told MPs that he was “clearly…well paid”.
In a letter, Mr Tidswell said: “We think he [Henry Staunton] may actually have been referring to a 12-page Speak Up document which raises a number of allegations, some of which I believe relate to Mr Read, but a number of which do not.
“In accordance with Post Office’s Speak Up process on whistleblowing, these allegations are being investigated by an external barrister. This investigation is still ongoing and Mr Read and others within Post Office are fully cooperating with this investigation.”
A spokesman for Ms Davies told The Telegraph: “The Post Office is misrepresenting the HR director’s Speak Up dossier.
“It was not directed at anyone other than Nick Read. Any other names mentioned were incidental to the complaint about Nick.
“For the avoidance of doubt, Henry Staunton was not named in the document.”
A Post Office spokesman said: “There are inaccuracies and falsehoods in Mr Staunton’s claims. The investigation remains ongoing and nobody should be drawing any conclusions at this stage.”
