Mr Staunton said the Post Office boss “fell out” with the business’s [human resources] HR director and said that his own behaviour was only referenced once in an 80-page document about Mr Read.
The ex-chairman said there was one paragraph in the report on alleged politically incorrect remarks made by him and he “strenuously denied” the claim.
“This was a big investigation into Nick. And I didn’t realise you weren’t aware of that,” he told the MPs.
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Asked if he was informed his behaviour was under investigation in November last year, Mr Staunton said: “What there is, actually, is Mr Read fell out with his HR director and she produced a ‘speak up’ document which was 80 pages thick.
“Within that, was one paragraph… about comments that I allegedly made. So this is an investigation, not into me, this is an investigation made into the chief executive Nick Read.
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“That one paragraph you could say was about politically incorrect comments attributed to me which I strenuously deny.”
Downing Street has said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has confidence in Mr Read following Mr Staunton’s claims.
Also at the committee hearing, Mr Staunton reiterated claims he made in an interview with the Sunday Times that he was told by a senior civil servant, Sarah Munby, to go slow in processing sub-postmaster compensation claims over the Horizon IT scandal in the run-up to the general election.
In response to the note Ms Munby produced of the meeting, Mr Staunton said it wasn’t contemporaneous and that his email record, sent to Mr Read at the time and subsequently sent to journalists, was true.
“It is written a year and a month after my file note. So it’s not a contemporary file note by any means. It’s written with the purpose of answering this point.”
He also refuted claims made earlier in the hearing that he was disrupting an investigation and did not cooperate.
The focus of attention should be on justice for sub-postmasters, he added.
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1:57
Kemi Badenoch was asked in January – why sack Post Office chair after a year?
Mr Staunton said: “This should all be about the postmasters and their families and how their lives have been wrecked.
“That’s what all of this should be about and nothing else. The rest is just flimflam.”
The Horizon scandal saw more than 700 subpostmasters prosecuted by the Post Office and handed criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 as Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon software system made it look as though money was missing from their branches.
Hundreds of subpostmasters are still awaiting compensation despite the government announcing those who have had convictions quashed are eligible for £600,000 payouts.
Earlier in the day, a senior official at the Department of Business and Trade, Carl Creswell, said he had been told that other Post Office board members would resign should Mr Staunton not be removed. “I was told that explicitly,” he said.
He said there were two main allegations which influenced Mr Staunton’s removal, first that he had tried to stop a whistleblowing investigation into his conduct and the second that he was “trying to stop” the process to recruit a new board member.
The conviction of Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev reinforces a very broad interpretation of criminal liability, which has major repercussions for blockchain.
The defence secretary has said he is “angry inside” over the infected blood scandal ahead of a long-waited report into the decades-long injustice.
Grant Shapps told Sky News he agreed it had been one of the most “shameful failures” of government and said he was dismayed by the “lack of anybody taking responsibility”.
The findings of a public inquiry into the scandal, chaired by Sir Brian Langstaff, are due to be published on Monday.
From 1970 to the 1990s, tens of thousands of people were infected with contaminated blood through blood products or blood transfusions given via the NHS. People were infected with hepatitis or HIV – in some cases with both.
Mr Shapps told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips that the scandal was a “massive injustice which needs to be put right” and said the government would act on the report.
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13:43
Thousands of people died after being given infected blood
He said that while he was yet to see the report, he hoped it would finally allow families’ pain and loss to be acknowledged and for the government to properly respond.
Mr Shapps said he had spoken to relatives of several victims, including a couple who had lost their son, and said their stories made feel him “angry inside”.
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He added: “It just made me angry to know they had lost their son without anyone ever taking responsibility, so I think this is why this report tomorrow is very important.”
Successive governments have been blamed for failing to take responsibility and the current government has been accused of trying to delay compensation to victims after an inquiry was first set up by Theresa May in 2017.
It is estimated that the compensation bill could now exceed £10m.
The defence secretary admitted the process of delivering payouts to victims had gone on for “so long”.
He added: “This is a massive injustice which needs to be put right.
“And I know the government said we will. The report tomorrow, I think, will be the day for that family and others and I know the government will want to respond quickly.”
Asked whether Prime Minister Rishi Sunak would apologise to the victims, Mr Shapps said: “I don’t want to mislead because I don’t have special insight into that.”
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