Post Office in turmoil as top lawyer Ben Foat resigns
- Foat has taken a fully paid leave of absence from his role
- This comes as the investigation into a miscarriage of justice enters its final phase
- Post office prosecuted hundreds of innocent postmasters and postmistresses
Unrest at the post office has increased further after the lawyer responsible for responding to the Horizon IT investigation resigned.
Ben Foat has taken a leave of absence on full pay from his role as group general counsel, the most senior legal position within the taxpayer-owned organisation.
This comes as the independent investigation into the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history nears its final stages.
The scandal led to the Post Office prosecuting hundreds of innocent postmasters and mistresses after the flawed Horizon computer system was introduced.
More than 700 of them were wrongly prosecuted and imprisoned between 1999 and 2015 for theft, false accounting and other crimes in cases brought by the Post Office based on flawed records.
In a bad sign, the Post Office has been thrown into further turmoil after the lawyer responsible for responding to the Horizon IT investigation resigned
Many more companies went bust and suffered enormous stress and public shame, based on evidence of the £1bn supposedly ‘secure’ Horizon software system.
Thousands of victims are still waiting for compensation.
The news that Foat has stepped down is the latest twist in the revolving door in the Post Office boardroom.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that chief executive Nick Read will keep his full salary, despite his deputy being called upon to carry out his normal duties as Read prepares for the final phase of the Horizon investigation, due to start in September.
The £60,000 Read will receive over seven weeks is slightly more than the £54,000 bonus he was forced to give back for his previous work on the Horizon study, amid public outcry.
Read also faced calls to resign over a letter in which he said the Post Office would support the prosecution of more than half of the postmasters convicted in the Horizon scandal.
MPs on the economics and trade committee had no confidence in his leadership and accused him of giving misleading evidence.
Read also faced criticism from the Post Office’s former HR director for being “obsessed” with his salary, which last year totalled £573,000.
He also denied a claim by former Post Office chairman Henry Staunton that he had threatened to resign unless he was paid more than £1m. Staunton was sacked in January by former Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch.
He was sacked after claiming the government had suspended compensation payments to postmasters until the hit ITV drama series Mr Bates Vs The Post Office starring Toby Jones had aired that month.
Further controversy arose when finance director Alisdair Cameron retired last month with an estimated payout of £1.2m, after being off sick since last year over a reported dispute with Read.
Foat, 45, was forced to apologise to the public inquiry last year after a document emerged that used racist language about wrongly convicted sub-postmasters, even calling some of them ‘negroes’.
The document was distributed to post office staff as recently as 2019.
It was a guide for fraud investigators, who had to group suspects based on racial characteristics from the 19th century colonial era, referring to people of African descent.
Foat also came under fire from inquiry chairman Sir Wyn Williams over the Post Office’s delay in releasing evidence, including the controversial racial profiling document.
“It is clear to me that the evidence he (Foat) gave me both in writing and orally relies largely on his understanding of the information given to him by others,” Williams said.
Foat was scheduled to give further testimony last month.
The session was cancelled at the last minute after a member of the research team fell ill.
Foat will now appear for questioning in the autumn.
The Post Office confirmed that Foat is ‘temporarily out of work’.
“We cannot comment on individual employment matters,” a spokesperson said.
He will be replaced by Legal Director Sarah Gray, who will take over Foat’s day-to-day duties on an interim basis.
John Dillon, former legal director at lottery operator Camelot, has been appointed interim general counsel for the Horizon investigation, the Post Office reported.
Read is meanwhile being replaced on an interim basis by Owen Woodley, the Post Office’s deputy manager.
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