PRINCE OF DARKNESS

NAME: Tim Parker AGE: 64 JOB: Post Office chairman TENURE: October 2015-present POST OFFICE EARNINGS: £245,000

IN City circles, he is known as the Prince of Darkness for the gusto with which he embarks on job cuts, writes Lucy White.

Tim Parker, 64, the current chairman of the Post Office, presided over a restructuring at Clarks Shoes after becoming its chief executive in 1996, during which time 20 factories were closed.

Eight years later he became boss of the AA, where he reportedly showed up in a Porsche to sack factory workers.

Two years into his chairmanship of the Post Office, in 2017, he supported his chief executive in fighting 550 of his former staff through the civil courts using an aggressive legal strategy.

That he remains in post as a new chief executive, Nick Read, seeks to repair the Post Office’s reputation has raised eyebrows amongst Horizon campaigners.

The father of four, said to be worth £247million in the 2018 Sunday Times Rich List, said he was attracted to the Post Office by its ‘strong social purpose’. On joining in 2015, he claimed he only needed to work a day and a half per week to turn around the loss-making outfit.

He negotiated a £75,000 annual pay package and for at least the past two years has donated his Post Office fees to charity. He saw them reduced to £19,200 last year as he cut his hours further.

The businessman went to the £7,000 per term Abingdon School for boys and Oxford University, and was briefly First Deputy Mayor of London under Boris Johnson in 2008.

The Post Office has set up a compensation scheme for sub-postmasters.