Who is Sarah Munby? The civil servant told ex-Post Office chairman Henry Staunton to delay payments to Horizon scandal victims

The Post Office Horizon scandal's attention has turned to Sarah Munby, a civil servant whose involvement in advising former Post Office chairman Henry Staunton to delay victim payments has raised significant questions.

In January 2023, the chairman of the Post Office, Henry Staunton, was sacked from his position. However, in an interview with The Sunday Times, he revealed that "he had been told to slow down compensation payments to victims," as seen in BBC.

Today, on February 21, 2024, Henry presented a memo claiming proof of Sarah, the civil servant, saying "now was not the time for dealing with long-term issues" and they should "hobble" up to the election, as per the publication.

The Post Office Horizon scandal is a long-running scandal that occurred between 1999 and 2015. The Post Office accused sub-post offices throughout the UK of theft, fraud, and false accounting based on the information from the Horizon IT system installed in the 1990s, as seen in The Guardian.

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Post Office compensation delay revealed the influence of Sarah Munby:

The Post Office Horizon scandal is a significant miscarriage of justice involving the Post Office, a UK-based postal service provider, and its Horizon accounting system. In the late 1990s, the Horizon system was installed to manage post-office branches' transactions, balances, and other financial aspects.

However, between 1999 and 2015, several postmasters across the UK were wrongfully accused of theft, fraud, and false accounting due to discrepancies in the Horizon system. As per BBC, these accusations led to legal action, financial penalties, and even imprisonment for some postmasters, despite many being innocent.

As per the BBC, the government promised to pay compensation, but concerns and questions were raised as the government could only settle 33 claims out of the 938 postmasters convicted.

On Wednesday, February 21, 2023, the ex-chairman of Post Office Henry Staunton, who was sacked in January 2024, revealed that he emailed Post Office chief executive Nick Read about the notes of the conversation he had with Sarah Munby, where he was asked to delay the compensation, as per BBC.

The memo, which Mr Staunton proposed, suggested that Sarah Munby understood the huge commercial challenge due to the financial position faced by the Post Office. However, she warned Mr. Staunton that "politicians do not necessarily like to confront reality," as mentioned in a memo heard on the BBC.

Further, the memo revealed that Sarah Munby said the post office must not deal with a problematic situation before the upcoming general election. Thus, she suggested they shouldn't rush to address the issue like "ripping off a band-aid" quickly, but instead, they should handle it more slowly and carefully, as seen in the publication.

However, PM Rishi Sunak has refused to assert or confirm that Henry Staunton had lied about the government's management of payments for victims of the Horizon scandal, as per The Guardian.

Rishi Sunak refused to talk about the Horizon scandal new development (Image via Getty)

Sarah Munby, a British civil servant born in 1982, has been the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) since February 2023. She has two master's degrees and five years of experience in Whitehall.