Post Office's Richard Taylor Complains Media Focused On Scandal Victims In Secret Recording 

The arrogance and cruelty of these people is breathtaking! 🇬🇧

This is unbelievable, from the most trusted brand in the UK to the most corrupt brand - This is outrageous

These Post Office Execs need to be prosecuted and jailed immediately.

Wow. So good of Richard Taylor to state clearly the Post Office's position on this. They are perfectly happy to wrongly charge and convict 73 innocent people if they can convict 23 others. Let's face it. Those 23 others were probably convicted because of a threatening plea-bargain, as we know happened ("say you were falsely accounting and we won't charge you with theft"). What a disgusting individual.

Nothing is over until the people responsible for this fiasco are behind bars.

Was nice to hear from the post office director of communications He should be out of a job by Monday

“Some are probably hard done by” absolutely disgusting

What happened to the money the victims ‘paid back’ if it was never missing in the first place 😡

As an old comms officer I knew the head of Comms would have to be in it up to his ears. He’s excusing a corporate swindle and has no priority for treating people fairly and legally. I think he’s in breach of many things including his own professional code of conduct and should never get another job at that level. Or any level.

Brilliant............the truth is prevailing

That might not help him when he comes up for trial

God knows where the money went? It actually all went into a suspense account, and then sat there for three years before being credited to Post Office profit and loss account as additional profit.

When you hear something like this from a current senior executive, it seems clear that the culture in the PO is irredeemably broken. Maybe we need to consider some kind of radical restructuring to clear out the old guard?

Novel way of Taylor resigning from his job 😬

These Post Office execs need to be infront of the enquiry before they themselves are prosecuted for mass fraud against the subpostmaster and gross negligence in the employ of publicly owned business.

The post office leaders all should go, why are they still there

Richard Taylor - Group Corporate Affairs, Communications & Brand Director. Fancy title, well qualified. A complete and utter waste of space who should be dismissed for Gross Misconduct.

Somebody take hold of this man and explain to him that they were not real losses. The computer was showing money missing that didn't exist in the first place. People were bullied and intimidated into 'paying back' money that was never lost. Their hard earned money, savings, family money, swallowed up and to add insult to injury, because there was no 'missing money' hole to be filled, the money taken from them went into profits! Keep telling him, and all his cronies, until they understand. Oh, and sack the buggers as well.

Mr Taylor should be dismissed with immediate effect.

How can somebody be so INHUMANE? and some people are saying these people should not be prosecuted because of revenge reasons?, in this case I thinks is absolutely warranted!. He should be jailed and the key thrown away!

It's time people were held to account for this it an outrage

How dare the media support VICTIMS , he also does not understand the premise INNOCENT UNTILL PROVED GUILTY what a muppet he is.And that is me being polite.

Holly crap the recording 😮😢 You can’t polish a turd but I think he’s about to be sand blasted.

There may well have been people who stole money and were rightfully convicted for theft, but the point is the absolute scandal that the the Post Office KNOWINGLY ruined many peoples lives and even sent some to prison KNOWING they were innocent, and then even lied and tried to cover it up and do everything possible to keep up the nonsense. Every single one of those people involved in the cover up need to spend the same amount of time behind bars that all the innocent people involved did. Add all the days together and let each and everyone do that amount of time themselves.

Where do the Post Office find these psychopaths?

Caught with his trousers down, Nick revealed that the recording took place a few months into his involvement, suggesting a deep investment in the overturned convictions case. Positioned as a reformer, tasked with sweeping away outdated approaches, he was supposed to address systemic issues rather than scapegoating postmasters and mistresses as thieves. The smoking gun exposing a blatant disregard for innocent lives as collateral damage. Despite the post office's rigorous vetting process for honorable figures in the community, the casual portrayal of these individuals as dishonest is not only ignorant but also disgusting and arrogant. This perspective, reducing the role to acquiring a counter, a red sign, some scales, and cash, undermines the extensive effort involved and reflects a lack of understanding and appreciation for the responsibilities tied to the position. In the end, it paints a stark picture of a system gone awry, where the pursuit of justice is compromised, and the vital role of postmasters and mistresses is unjustly belittled.

Richard Taylor should fired immediately for gross mishandling gross misconduct and gross stupidity

Was he in a bar after a few shandys? Very revealing of the senior executives mindset and attitude towards the sub-post masters .

Where did the money go,how much in total and why is not traceable.

I look forward to reading he has started his first day in prison and will remain there for at least 20 years. And no pension.

The first thing the Post Office should do is pay back the money THEY stole from the postmasters, with interest at the going rates, per year until the day they pay it back. Then compensation can be sorted out later, but a deadline of say 6 months should be set. Fujitsu should be liable for most of the legal costs over the decades I would have thought as they knew the truth all along. It seems all political parties are guilty of not sorting things out and cover-ups which says all we need to know about our political system!

So now that these convictions have proven to be illegal the perpetrators of the real crime need to see the inside of a jail cell. Oh, and by the way, their salaries and bonuses must be clawed back by the asset forfeiture unit.

Head of Communications 😂😂😂😂😂. More like head of denial, he should be long gone!

In any privately run business, this twerp would be suspended with immediate effect and then fired for bringing the organisation into disrepute. The problem is that in this situation it isn't a privately run business, it's a cosy public sector 'care home for morally deficient and inept managers', and the Post Office brand has already been so comprehensively destroyed by its managers that in the private sector it would be regarded as a liability rather than an asset.

I think it confirms the Post Office management attitude towards sub postmasters. That they started from a point of guilty before looking at any evidence.

Is Richard Taylor just taking the mick ? He can’t be just stupid, surely ? If neither of these applies, then he is even now trying to justify the post office’s appalling behaviour over its handling of its business perpetrated by those at the upper echelons of the organisation ? Criminal proceedings MUST follow…

Money obviously disappeared into someone's Government pocket.

When this is all done if there isn't a wholesale review of the relationship between the current power structures and the majority, the people, i fear we will have learned nothing (AGAIN) and will be back on the rinse and repeat cycle that never really cleans anything. If we don't Im not sure which straw it will be that breaks the camels back. The camel is old and is clearly no longer fit for purpose, it will be less painful to us all to retire it before we end up having to drag its stinking carcass along with those that thrived and profited on its arthritic back and dump them all into the sea.

The biggest fear is that an excuse will be made, like the 2008/2009 bank crash - they are too big to fail. The executives/managers will find a scapegoat or two, and keep their pay and bonuses, quietly move on and get paid to do work elsewhere.

How much money actually "went missing" anyway? It probably doesn't even come close to the salaries of these execs. That's the real crime.

Who the hell do they think they are god .its unbelievable let’s hope this man see the inside of a cell for a good few years.

Just . . . Wow!

All that missing "money" went somewhere! So the "Post Office" must have sent less physical funds than declared to those postmasters OR the ". Post Office" must delared less money than actually received. Ultimately the person in charge of the "Post Office" is responsible for the missing funds. So they should be prosecuted! Any business dealing in the movement of funds ultimately has accountants to check the "books", they to should be investigated. Because those post masters were ultimately victims of fraud carried out by the Post Office and their employees.

Definitely not public money. The management of the PO should foot the entire compensation bill and if they can’t/won’t pay they should be forced to bankrupt themselves and go to prison.

There aren’t enough examples of how the system failed being reported. Here is an example. A customer went into one post office and withdrew £100 from his bank The postmaster gives him the £100 cash. The horizon system has a connection fail and it doesn’t show that £100 has been taken from the customers bank account. So now the postmaster is £100 down. He knew the customer so he checks with him to see if the £100 has left his bank account and it has. The customer doesn’t want to give the £100 back obviously. The postmaster has to replace the £100 or prove it was the system that messed up. That’s just one example of how horizon failed.

I was a sub postmaster for 9 years between 2006 and 2015. I saw so much wast by post office management. We would get delivered box loads of new brochures on products and huge glossy poster to put out for public display. After a week we would get a message to not put them on display because of a print error and wait for replacements and destroy the misprinted ones. My small branch would regularly dispose of around a hundred brochures. The cost of all these regular mistakes nation wide must have been in the hundreds of thousands. No wonder they needed to recover money from subpostmasters to show some profit for their bonuses.

It is better that one guilty man walks free than to imprison one innocent man. That way the whole judicial system fails to be trusted.

He genuinely thinks that they have had a partial success! The sad fact is, that if a lie is told often enough, it becomes the truth. Sadly, there will be people listening to this, saying I told you Doreen, there is no smoke without fire! I learned decades ago, if you have a snake pinned to the ground, do not have thoughts of mercy. Keep twisting your sword until it is dead. It does not make you as bad as them. It has to be done.

Richard Taylor continues to offer excellent journalism. These recordings need to reach as wide an audience as possible. We all need to understand just how rotten many organisations, which we are forced to pay for, actually are.

my heart went out these people. they deserve to be generously compensated for this injustice.

Might be worth polishing CV ….

Lock him up.

It seems to be completely incriminating evidence.

Richard Taylor, must go.

their disconnect from reality beggars belief.

Who knows where the money went he says! I thought that information may be a bit important when having people charged and imprisoned. They are all of the same dirt on your shoe ilk these corporate immoral failures.

I like his attitude- "Sure, our buggy computer system created phantom losses that sent some people to prison, but the rest of them did steal the money!"

The money got lost in the post !!!!!

Taylor is a Communications Manager? So not an actual lawyer, judge, investigator, IT expert, forensic auditor, or anything actually requiring technical knowledge. So maybe he better shut his trap?

We ahould be looking at the culprits

Why does the post office need a ¨director of communications¨? What does he do? Clearly communicating is not his core skill!! Sack him immediately, if not sooner!

Arrogant! Put him in prison!

So-called "missing" money. - if the computer software duplicates transactions for example, say someone pays in £500, and the software generates one correct transaction and another erroneous transaction, it looks like there should be £1000 in the till, but there's only £500. The Post Office then accuses the SPM of "stealing" the missing £500, but in fact it never existed.

This man should be in prison.

Before Horizon system went live around 5 prosecutions a year, after Horizon it increased to around 60. The comments by Richard Taylor illustrates a deep rooted culture within the Post Office of deflecting and blaming others for their and suppliers failures. This will require a fundamental change in leadership within the Post Office and there had to be people at a more senior level (past and present) that knew Horizon had issues, that they prosecuted people with less than robust evidence, who misled Postmasters, lawyers, courts, MP's and Parliament and they need to be prosecuted for perverting justice. Richard Taylor's comments confirm he believes there are dishonest Postmasters and in any walk of life that may be true. He should look round at the Management in the Post Office (past and present) and know for certainty dishonesty exists. Shame he doesn't hold himself and his colleagues to the same high standards he expected from Postmasters ! The public and press are watching, and should there not be prosecutions of Post Office management (past and present) and potentially suppliers this matter will be brought to the public's attention again. Handing back a CBE doesn't even scratch the surface.

as i've said elsewhere any private prosecution brought by the post office is now tainted. All victims must be exonerated, guilty or not. Pre horizon or not. POs prosecution methods are unreliable. Once this organisation is demonstrated to be untrustworthy/corrupt its private prosecutions must be overturned. NO ifs or buts. It's 'fruit of the poisoned tree'. An apposite legal maxim.

Spot the brain cells this guy is so clueless and just towing the party line. I wonder how he would do in jail if he was innocent.

He can be the first one they sling in jail.

just reflects the culture at the heart of the insidious business that is the Post Office Ltd

Despicable

at the beginning of the 2 decade war on Iran, which was supposed to be Afghanistan, 11 BILLION was put on a ship and sent to Iran 'for military purposes' but was not on the ship when it arrived. It too, 'went missing' with no explanation. Just disappeared, and nothing atcall was done to recover it. A friend who writes war novels was turned down by his publisher when he proposed a book on the subject. Not a wonder why America is so unaffordable when taxpayers are forced to pay it back. If I had tsken 11 billion you can bet the Feds and every other govt. entity would have me imprisoned by days end. Its been 23 years and most Americans know nothing about it

People keep asking how this could happen. Well this is a prime example of someone from the management class. There are thousands of people like this who are 'running' things like the NHS, the civil service and of course, the PO. They look down on people on the front line as 'less thans', even though they may have decades of experience. But what they dont have is a degree in *insert meaningless subject*. This then creates a divide leading to resentment and mistrust. Thats how this happens. Its still happening and it will continue to. When it takes an ITV drama to change policy and law it may be time to change things. Sorry for the rant.

Now I know why we have the C word. Certainly applies to him.

Did the money go to the same place as Johnson's and Sunak's text messages?.

i work at a cash n carry NO POST OFFICES use C & C they buy sweets from the post office who have a deal with manufacturers & stationary stamps etc is from wholesalers

Bad Moon RIsing playing in the background is perfect.

They have no remorse disgusting

If I were the chief of Police, I'd offer limited immunity to the first 3 PO execs to come forward with the whole truth, so the rest of them can all go to jail for a long time.

When Taylor talks about how postmasters must have 'borrowed' the money and not put it back, it makes you wonder what he would do if put in a similar position considering he's able to come to these sorts of judgements. How often do we judge others according to how we would act, thinking that everyone thinks the same way we do?

Defies belief! Disgusting!

Time to retitle these corporate weasels: Director of Obfuscation would surely be more accurate

I would check his finances. Judging others by your own standards.

Where is the report from the forensic accountants????

Don’t worry - I’m sure he’ll be a Knight of the Realm soon though

What wacko . I hope he receives some due justice.

Oh dear......do not pass go.......go straight to jail.

Yep well every accusation is likely a confession from those people good indication of what they’d like to do given the opportunity

This is why every single good person in the world should secretly record every day they have at work and keep any recordings that reveal misconduct and lies by their colleagues. In fact companies should be prevented from claiming misconduct against anyone who covertly records at work. If you haven't done anything wrong what have you got to worry about, as some of us are told.

Pity the PO don't get lost.

The question is where is the money that was stolen or supposed to be swindled by post master? Where is it? Can this happen in our uk banking system?

He needs adding to the “to do list” for resignation and further investigation.

He'd almost have a point that some of the postmasters genuinely could have stolen some money, it's certainly plausible. But we'll never know now will we, because he and his people messed up so enormously.

There are many people who need to be left unemployed and unemployable at the end of this and I don't mean the postmasters.

Look into DWP, just the same culture.

Wow these people need to go

You a4e innocent until you prove guilty.

Whar is puzzling me is that the Post Office is by any description a financial institution. Any other financial institution offering similar services would be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority or its predecessor the FSA. As such the individual post masters would have had recourse to the Financial Obudsman which would have acted on their behalf to hold the PO to account and to prove their case. It seems to me, as in many other State Owned businesses and services ( NHS, HMRC) they are largely a law unto themselves acting as judge, jury and executioner.

Why did this programme not try and speak to richard taylor i would have loved to hear what he said

what's interesting is why these recordings were made. Were they secret? who recorded them? why they were kept? but most interesting is why were they made.

Another CBE in the post I guess for him.