The chief executive of the Post Office has said previous leaders may not have been “held to account” for being aware of problems with the Horizon IT system.Nick Read has been giving evidence at the long-running inquiry into faults with the system which sparked the wrongful prosecutions of hundreds of postmasters.

Bosses did not appreciate the effects of the Horizon scandal on the business in 2019, chief executive Nick Read has conceded.

The chief executive of the Post Office has agreed the organization's leadership team was living in a "dream world" in the months leading up to the launch of a statutory inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal, one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in UK history.

The Post Office boss said it was of "deep regret" to him that the process was taking so long. He blamed bureaucracy, not prejudice or penny pinching. He said it was "astonishing" that it was his organisation managing some of the schemes, given the lack of trust people have in the Post Office.

The Post Office Horizon IT scandal led to hundreds of postmasters being wrongly prosecuted for theft and false accounting

There can be few – if any – projects more important to the future of the Post Office than the replacement of the controversial Horizon IT system at the heart of the scandal that led to the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice.

Post Office chief arrives to give evidence at Horizon IT inquiry, after dozens of postmasters were prosecuted for allegedly stealing funds, despite the Horizon system malfunctioning.

Three individuals are currently under investigation by the Post Office and outside agencies over conduct in Horizon IT scandal, CEO Nick Read said