Postmaster challenges termination of his contract

The postmaster of Carbury post office in Kildare has been granted High Court permission to challenge the termination of his contract with An Post following an inquiry into financial allegations against him.

Patrick Aspell says An Post conducted a flawed investigation and appeal process into the allegations.

Alex White SC, for Mr Aspell, told the court an investigation into stewardship of the post office resulted in an inquiry into allegations including failure to report financial shortages, misuse of company funds and falsification of accounts. He denied the allegations.

An inquiry, prompted by an audit in June 2017, resulted in a recommendation that his contract be terminated.

He appealed and the decision was upheld last November with the termination coming into effect on December 31.

Mr Aspell, who has run the post office, part of the Centra Store in Carbury, since 2005, claims both the original inquiry and the appeal were tainted by the procedures adopted.

In particular, counsel said, at the start of the appeal hearing in March last year, the decision maker opened proceedings by referring to a book written about another "quite notorious" case in which a postmaster was found to have misappropriated €1.7m.

This case was nothing like his client's case and the comments showed an extraordinary level of pre-disposition by a decision maker which was entirely inappropriate.

Mr Aspell was also complaining about the delay in dealing with him as it took some seven months, until November, before the appeal decision to terminate the contract was communicated to him. An Post gave as a reason for the delay "excuses about discussions going on with the postmasters' union", counsel said.

The original inquiry in 2017 was also flawed for reasons including that Mr Aspell was not given copies of documentation used in the inquiry.

Mr Aspell was principally seeking an order quashing the appeal decision of last November.

The application on his behalf was made on an ex-parte basis.

Mr Justice Charles Meenan was satisfied an arguable case had been made into the alleged pre-disposition of a decision maker and delay.

He granted leave to bring the proceedings against and said the case could come back in June.