Post Office boss steps down days before Horizon glitch inquiry

A public inquiry is due to open on Monday into how 3,000 post office staff – including three from the West Midlands – were falsely accused of theft and false accounting due to a glitch with the Post Office's Horizon database.

Tim Parker, who along with former chief executive Paula Vennells oversaw an aggressive legal strategy to contest the cases, has announced he will step down from his post in the autumn.

Mr Parker, who is 66, became chairman of the Post Office in 2015.

In April last year, the Court of Appeal overturned the convictions of Rubbina Shaheen, who kept Greenfields Post Office in Shrewsbury, Tracy Felstead, from Telford, and Carl Page who kept a post office in Rugeley.

They were among 700 post office workers who had been wrongly convicted on the basis of evidence from the Post Office's Horizon database.

Mrs Shaheen, now 56, was jailed for 12 months at Shrewsbury Crown Court in 2010 for false accounting.

Miss Felstead, now 39, was jailed for six months in 2001 after being wrongly convicted of stealing £11,500 when she was a 19-year-old counter clerk.

Mr Page, 55, who kept Anson Road Post Office in Rugeley, was jailed for two years in 2007 after being accused of stealing £94,000.

The Post Office now faces a possible £1 billion compensation bill, with the taxpayer likely to end up footing the cost.

Mr Parker, who quit as chairman of the National Trust last year, said he was "sincerely sorry on behalf of the Post Office for historical failings" following the scandal.

Mr Parker had previously worked as chief executive of Clark's Shoes, and later as the head of the AA.

A Post Office spokesman said: "Tim Parker's second term as chairman will conclude in the autumn with the Department of Business, as the shareholder of Post Office, conducting the search for his successor."