Alan Bates: Post Office is 'atrocious dead duck' which should be sold to Amazon

The Post Office is an “atrocious” organisation which should be sold off to Amazon, said campaigner Alan Bates as he branded his former employers as a “dead duck”.

The former subpostmaster said the institution is now “beyond saving” in the wake of the Horizon IT scandal, where hundreds of subpostmasters were persecuted and wrongly prosecuted.

Asked about the Post Office’s culture, Mr Bates told the public inquiry: “It’s an atrocious organisation.

“They need disbanding. It needs removing. It needs building up again from the ground floor.

“The whole of the postal service nowadays – it’s a dead duck. It’s beyond saving.

“It needs to be sold to someone like Amazon. It needs a real big injection of money and I only think that can happen coming in from the outside.

“Otherwise it’s going to be a bugbear for the government for the years to come.”

Mr Bates’ evidence came on the first day of the fifth phase of the public inquiry, which is examining the Post Office response to the growing Horizon scandal and the response of others to the crisis, including those in government.

The campaigner, who led the campaign for justice, said the government must be