The Post Office's finance chief has been off sick for nearly a year after a clash with its under-fire chief exec - as the taxpayer-owned company refuses to say who is doing his £316,000-a-year job in the meantime.
Alisdair Cameron, who remains on the Post Office's board, has not worked or attended a single meeting since April, The Telegraph reports.
It is alleged CEO Nick Read asked that the Government authorise a pay-off for Cameron, but this was denied.
And now the scandal-hit tax-payer owned company reportedly refuses to reveal his interim replacement while he has been signed off work.
It comes as Read has been accused of bullying and sexism by the firm's former chairman in the latest twist of their long- running row.
And the broadsheet further claimed that the company has employed five different HR heads during his five-year time in charge.
Jane Davies, who worked as the group people officer, is understood to now be suing them for unfair dismissal after writing a bombshell 80-page whistleblowing document targeting Read.
Last week Chancellor Jeremy Hunt failed to express confidence in Read amid claims he threatened to quit the role unless he was paid more than £1 million.
In a letter published by MPs yesterday, ex-chairman Henry Staunton said CEO Mr Read's former HR director Ms Davies had given a detailed account of his behaviour which 'constituted bullying'.
In the letter to the Commons business committee, he said: 'As the only woman in the senior management team . . . she felt that she was being treated by Read and his henchmen as a 'pain in the a**e' for focusing on tackling the toxic culture rather than prioritising Read's salary.'
He added: 'She had come to me on numerous occasions for advice on how to deal with Read's behaviour towards her, which in her, and my, view, constituted bullying.'
Mr Read and Mr Staunton, who was sacked in January by Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, are both under investigation by the Post Office.
Mr Staunton, 75, claimed in his letter that the investigation into him was a 'sham' and 'stitch up'.
He said he believed he had been included in the inquiry because he had 'asked about the ethnic origin of a candidate' and said that 'girls' were 'pains in the a***s'.
But he claims that when he made the latter comments, he had been referring to remarks made to him by a senior colleague in a previous role.
He said he had questioned candidates' backgrounds in an attempt to promote diversity.
It comes after a marathon committee session into the Horizon IT scandal last week, when Mr Staunton claimed Mr Read had threatened to resign four times over his 'too low' £400,000 salary.
During last week's hearing, Mr Read appeared to contradict this, saying 'no' when asked if he had tried to resign.
In his own letter, Mr Read said: 'I wanted to clarify in writing my negative response to your question: 'Have you ever tried to resign as chief executive of the Post Office?'
'To reiterate the response I gave on the 27th, I have never tried to resign.'
He added: 'I have suffered frustrations - many CEOs have conversations privately with appropriate people in their organisation, and I am no different.'
Mr Staunton had told MPs on the Business and Trade Committee last Tuesday that Mr Read said he was going to resign because he was 'unhappy with his pay'. He was paid £815,600 in 2021-22 and £573,000 in 2022-23.
The then chairman suggested boosting Mr Read's maximum pay package of £1.1 million, adding that would still place him in the 'lower quartile' of his private-sector peers.
In Parliament last week, the postal affairs minister Kevin Hollinrake confirmed that Mr Staunton had tried to 'double' Mr Read's salary twice.
A source told the Sunday Times that the Post Office board was 'forever trying to increase Read's pay' and 'tried to find ever more creative ways to talk [to then-business secretary Grant Shapps] into it.'
The Post Office said: 'Nick Read was rated as exceptional by both Tim Parker (the previous chairman) and Henry Staunton. Post Office uses external consultants to advise and benchmark its pay policies, and the CEO pay ratio is 17:1, compared to the median UK CEO pay ratio of 40:1.'
The company's executive directors do not set their own remuneration and this is done by the remuneration committee, with outside advice and agreed with the Government.
As a commercial organisation and like other firms, the Post Office offers a number of different remuneration incentives to its executives in order to attract and retain them.
A Post Office spokesperson said: 'We can confirm that our Group Chief Finance Officer is currently on sick leave. It is not appropriate for us to add any further comment.'