Post Office chief executive Nick Read will step down from the role in March next year, the company has announced.
Neil Brocklehurst, the current interim chief operating officer, is expected to replace Read, who temporarily stepped back from the role in July to give his “entire attention” to the Horizon scandal inquiry.
At the time, Read said it was “vitally important” that changes made in the organisation could be demonstrated and “give confidence to the inquiry and country at large that ‘nothing like this could happen again’”.
As a result, the Post Office board and Read “agreed that I should give my entire attention to the task of preparing the business” for the latest stage of the inquiry.
The Horizon scandal, in which subpostmasters were wrongfully convicted of fraud due to a faulty accounting system, caused a furore earlier this year through an ITV documentary centred on campaigner Sir Alan Bates.
Read took over from the previous Post Office boss Paula Vennells in September 2019. In April, he was “exonerated of all misconduct allegations” in an independent and unseen report.
More to follow