Former Post Office (PO) boss Paula Vennells is included in the key figures who have made final closing statements to the PO Horizon IT Inquiry.

It is the first time Vennells has been heard speaking on the scandal since May this year. The hearing has been running since February 2022.

Vennells used her final legal submission to maintain her innocence, and state that she was “devastated” information was “not shared” with her about the faulty Horizon system, and there is “nothing to show she acted in bad faith”.

She also said she accepts that she “did not manage to uncover the truth about the matters” because “she herself was not told about issues which may have allowed her to do so”.

Her lawyers added that the information passed on to her “was incomplete or wrong”, or that information “was not passed on” at all, therefore that “does not equate…to a failure on Vennells part”.

Meanwhile, Fujitsu, which provided the faulty system, shared it “fully acknowledges and accepts its share of those failings” in its closing statement, and “deeply regrets its role” in the suffering of victims.

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Lawyers for the IT company stated that the Horizon IT system, however, was “but one part” of the PO IT infrastructure.

Fujitsu’s lawyers stated that both Fujitsu and PO “were aware from the outset” that bugs, errors and defects were present in the IT system.

They added that “miscarriages of justice” were not caused by “technological failures alone” but also ” the product of serious human and organisational failures in conduct, ethics, governance and culture”.

The National Federation of Subpostmasters (NFSP) said it wanted to take the “opportunity” to “recognise and apologise for the failings of the organisation and its leadership of the past, in particular during the key Horizon scandal period”.

“There was a veritable cast of individual bad actors tied up in the Horizon scandal and they created the organisation that became a bad actor itself, the Post Office,” the statement read.

NFSP added that it has “established a number of wellbeing and mental health initiatives since 2019” to account for the human impact of the scandal, as well as being in the process of developing a Culture Committee, consisting of postmasters.

Ex-Fujitsu engineer Gareth Jenkins, who gave evidence in June and claimed that the Horizon system did a “good job”, said his role cannot be “analysed in isolation” from PO’s failings as prosecutor and investigator. In addition, PO failed to “instruct” him as an expert.

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