Former Post Office (PO) boss Paula Vennells broke down in tears as she admitted to making “mistakes” during the Horizon IT scandal.
Vennells appeared for three consecutive days before the Horizon IT scandal inquiry, concluding on 24 May. The session marked the first time she has spoken publicly on the scandal for nearly a decade.
Facing 150 subpostmasters, Vennells began proceedings with an apology, warning that her answers would be “difficult to listen to”.
She went on to admit to providing an inaccurate account of the Post Office’s prosecutions to MPs during a parliamentary meeting in 2015, though her testimony was largely constant denials of knowledge of Horizon bugs.
Responding to questions about the earlier appearance before MPs where she claimed all criminal cases brought against PO branch owners had been successfull, the former chief executive cried as she admitted “the Post Office knew” not all Horizon cases brought against sub-postmasters had been successful.
Vennells claimed she was not aware that the PO was conducting its own prosecutions, denied attempts to cover-up faults in the system, and said that she wasn’t kept informed about how many complaints sub-postmasters were sending about Horizon.
Later, Vennells faced tough questioning from inquiry counsel Jason Beer KC as he pushed her on her claims that she had never been warned about bugs. Vennells responded that she was “too trusting”.
Vennells also said that she “genuinely” couldn’t recall what she did after receiving communication in 2015 stating that there was “clear and unquestionable evidence” of Horizon bugs that “can and does cause thousands of pounds in losses to sub-postmasters”.
While the first two days saw Paula Vennells respond to questions from the inquiry’s lead council Jason Beer KC, the third day saw the former PO boss grilled by council for the victims, Sam Stein KC. At one point, after Vennells claimed, “I loved the Post Office”, Stein responded this was absolute rubbish.
Summing up her failures, Vennells told Stein: “What I failed to do, and I have made this clear previously, is I did not recognise the imbalance of power between the institution and the individual and I let these people down.”
Postmasters react
Throughout the day, postmasters expressed disbelief and anger at her testimony to news outlets, even laughing at points made by Beer from the inquiry’s public gallery.
Former sub-postmistress Jo Hamilton told the BBC that Vennells had been on a “charm offensive” and that she didn’t believe that she had not been aware of Horizon faults earlier than she admitted.
Others said her denials of knowledge are part of a “cover-up”, and it is a struggle to believe “anything that comes out her mouth.”
Previous updates
Last week, postmaster Alan Bates rejected Post Office’s (PO) compensation offer for the Horizon IT scandal for the second time, stating that it was a third of what he requested.
The news follows Bates’ first compensation offer in January, which he described as “cruel” and a sixth of what he claimed.
Separately, the ongoing inquiry also revealed that top PO executive Patrick Bourke referred to sub-postmasters seeking to challenge their convictions as self-indulgent “malcontents” in 2014, and he wrote that sub-postmasters’ convictions “pales into insignificance” compared to the organisation’s “social mission”. Bourke expressed regret at the “poor choice of language” at the inquiry. The inquiry also heard that Jane MacLeod, a top internal lawyer at PO during the time of the Alan Bates vs PO court cases, “won’t co-operate” because “she lives abroad”.
In a sign of progress for the case, emergency legislation will be introduced in Scottish government to clear victims of the Horizon PO scandal, it was also revealed last week. The passing of new laws to exonerate those wrongfully convicted will be sped up so victims could get redress ‘as quickly as possible’. For other parts of the UK, a bill quashing the convictions of subpostmasters in England, Wales and Northern Ireland was passed on 23 May.
Read more Post Office Horizon IT scandal news
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