An anonymous group consisting of current and former employees of the Post Office and Royal Mail have called on the Forfeiture Committee to remove of honours awarded to 14 individuals who are connected to the Post Office Horizon scandal.
The 14 names mentioned by the group includes former ministers, civil servants, and Post Office and Royal Mail bosses such as Vince Cable KCB, Ed Davey KCB, Jo Swinson CBE, Donald Brydon CBE, Moya Green DBE, Alan Cook CBE and Alwen Lyons OBE.
The group has written to the committee listing the names of individuals who it said “owned, oversaw, governed and ran the Post Office” during the scandal, Computer Weekly reported.
The letter, as seen by Computer Weekly, stated, “We are deeply concerned by the testimony given under or to the inquiry, particularly during phases five and seven which has revealed beyond any doubt the incompetence, negligence, restlessness, ethical corruption and wilful blindness (‘not me guv’ attitude) of certain individuals at the heart of Whitehall, all of whom have been bestowed with honours.
“There can be no better an example of rewards for failure than those who owned, oversaw, governed and ran the Post Office – a taxpayer-funded organisation – and have received honours for their public or related service.
“The Forfeiture Committee, therefore, does not need to wait to consider stripping honours from those other senior individuals responsible for the scandal who have blatantly contravened a range of governance and conduct codes, legal and fiduciary duties at the Nolan principles.
"Their abject behaviour or failure to act in accordance with these standards has brought the honours systems into disrepute.”
This comes a day after the release of a damning report by Commons MPs on the progress of compensation of Post Office Horizon scandal victims.
In the report by the Business and Trade Committee (BTC), MPs have called for the government to be fined if it fails to provide redress quickly enough to victims of the Horizon software scandal.
MPs have called on to introduce new legally enforceable time limits for each stage of claim processing.
The process of seeking compensation is "akin to a second trial for victims", the committee chair Liam Byrne said.
It is "imperative" applicants receive upfront legal advice paid for by scheme operators rather than applicants, the committee's report said, as evidence given by claimants' solicitors said when they get legal advice, their financial redress offers double.
More than 700 sub-postmasters across the UK were wrongfully prosecuted by the Post Office for theft and false accounting using the Horizon software made by Fujitsu which incorrectly generated shortfalls in branches.
Many more incurred large debts, lost homes, experienced relationship breakdown, became unwell in an effort to repay the imagined shortfalls and some took their own lives.
Fed National President Mo Razzaq
