Ex-Post Office minister says she felt utter shame over scandal

Kelly Tolhurst, the first former minister to give evidence to the current phase of the Post Office scandal inquiry, has described her "Embarrassment" and "Utter shame" when a judge found in favour of sub-postmasters wrongly accused of theft and false accounting. Ms Tolhurst was the minister responsible for the Post Office from July 2018 to February 2020. She told the inquiry that she worried that Tom Cooper, the government's representative on the Post Office board, had "Gone native" and lost his independence from the Post Office and was not providing effective challenge or scrutiny. Her only power, she felt, was the "Nuclear option" of firing the Post Office chairman. Two more former Post Office ministers, Pat McFadden - now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster - and Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, are due to give evidence to the inquiry on Wednesday.

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