Ex-Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells broke down in tears and struggled to answer questions during her testimony to the Horizon IT scandal inquiry.
In the first of three days of testimony, Ms Vennells insisted she did not know until 2012 that the Post Office conducted its own private criminal investigations, despite joining the organisation in 2007.
She told the inquiry “it was an accepted reality, it was a status quo that I joined and accepted”, adding: “I shouldn’t have done.”
The former Post Office boss also said she was “too trusting” of the information she had been given while chief executive.
She broke down in tears when asked about her response to the death of former subpostmaster Martin Griffiths, who died following an attempted suicide in 2013 and there were long pauses before she answered some questions put to her.
More than 700 subpostmasters were wrongly prosecuted and handed criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 as a result of Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon IT system – which made it appear as though money was missing at their branches.
Vennells admits she received correspondence about issues facing subpostmasters
Paula Vennells accepted that she routinely received correspondence about issues subpostmasters were facing.
Asked if she saw a pattern in the correspondence, she said: “I saw the theme of Horizon coming up.”
“Was anything done by you to join the dots between them?” counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked.
Ms Vennells replied: “The dots I believed were being joined through the investigation work in the Complaints Mediation Scheme and in every case I believed we had looked at it in some detail and I regret today that clearly neither of those exposed the issues that we came to find out about through the Horizon issues judgment.”
Matt Mathers22 May 2024 15:50
Vennells: I didn’t believe statements about Horizon were folklore
Paula Vennells said she didn’t believe any of the statements made by lawyers about Horizon were “folklore”.
Jason Beer KC asked her if it said something about the culture of the organisation that false statements about the IT system were allowed to spread.
Taking a long pause before answering, Ms Vennells said she had no reason to believe the statements were false.
Matt Mathers22 May 2024 15:47
‘I do wonder what type of god you worship’
A former subpostmaster who tried to warn the organisation about the Horizon system emailed Paula Vennells in 2016 saying: “I do wonder what kind of god you worship.”
Paula Vennells was questioned on a number of emails she received from Tim McCormack at the Horizon IT Inquiry.
The inquiry heard how the subpostmaster received a standard response to one of his emails, with Post Office lawyer Rodric Williams commenting before the response was sent:
“Generally my view is that this guy is a bluffer, who keeps expecting us to march to his tune. I don’t think we should do, but instead respond with a straight bat.”
Ms Vennells denied thinking that Mr McCormack was a bluffer.
Mr McCormack sent another email to Ms Vennells in July 2016, saying: “A typical head in the sand reply from the team you have placed too much trust in. Once the police investigation is completed it is highly likely, indeed probable, that members of your staff will be sent to prison. Your role in this will not escape attention.”
He added: “I do wonder what kind of god you worship.”
Matt Mathers22 May 2024 15:39
Post Office lawyers responsible for false statements about Horizon – Vennells
The Post Office legal team was responsible for false statements and “folklore” about the IT Horizon accounting system circulating within the organisation, Paula Vennells has suggested.
She was asked why staff had made comments claiming that Horizon had no faults; every time the software had been investigated no errors had been; the Post Office always won in court and that Fujitsu had no remote access to the system.
Ms Vennells said those statements were not false at the time before suggesting the Post Office’s legal team was responsible for them.
“The source of those statements were…the only possible source of this statement would have been through the post office legal team.”
Matt Mathers22 May 2024 15:22
‘I don’t recall’
Ex-Post Office boss Paula Vennells has said she regrets that concerns raised by a former subpostmaster “took too long to address”.
In 2015, Tim McCormack wrote to Ms Vennells warning her that he had “clear and unquestionable evidence of an intermittent bug in Horizon that can and does cause thousands of pounds in losses to subpostmasters”.
Asked what she did after receiving this, Ms Vennells said: “I don’t recall.”
Amid gasps from those in the room, she went on: “Genuinely, I don’t recall.”
She later added: “In hindsight I think he was right and I regret that the matters he was raising took too long to address.”
Matt Mathers22 May 2024 15:09
I regret using the word noise about complaints – Vennells
Paula Vennells said she “regrets” using the word “noise” in association with complaints launched by subpostmasters about the Horizon IT system.
Asked at the inquiry into the scandal if “noise” was what complaints were seen as at the top end of the Post Office, Ms Vennells said: “No, and I’m sorry it is not a good word but you have also seen how I have responded personally to other individual matters.
“It is a word I regret using.”
Asked if it reflected the “workings of the minds” of those at the top of the business, Ms Vennells said: “I think it reflects a wrong understanding yes that people believed that Horizon worked and this is me deploying a word that was unwise.
“I did not in any way mean that I personally did not take seriously issues when they got to me.”
Matt Mathers22 May 2024 15:03
Vennells blames ‘unfair’ Post Office for maintaining ‘no errors’ in Horizon
Paula Vennells has said it was “completely unfair” of the Post Office to maintain that there were no systemic errors in Horizon.
Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked if a “frequent refrain” of the Post Office in 2014 was that there were no systemic errors in Horizon.
Ms Vennells replied: “It was, and it was wrong…it was completely unfair to use in the business.”
Matt Mathers22 May 2024 14:50
Post Office’s most senior IT manager was dismissive of story about accounting glitch – Vennells
The Post Office’s most senior IT manager was “dismissive” of a magazine which broke the story of seven subpostmasters beginning their fight for justice in 2009, Paula Vennells said.
In her first witness statement, Ms Vennells said the first she was aware that anyone was questioning Horizon was after the Computer Weekly article was published in May 2009.
She said the article was raised by Mike Young at a meeting of the executive management team who said it was “critical of Horizon and had been picked up by a Welsh language television station”.
Ms Vennells added: “I remember this reasonably well because Mike was dismissive of Computer Weekly. I recall he said it was a trade magazine that did not know what it was talking about in relation to Horizon. Mike said he was handling it.
“I spoke to him about it after the meeting because I was still concerned. He assured me that there was nothing wrong with the system and that the article was nonsense (or words to that effect).”
Matt Mathers22 May 2024 14:45
She will ‘never’ shed as many tears as I have – wronged subpostmaster
Wronged subpostmaster Lee Castleton has said Paula Vennells will “never” shed as many tears as he has.
Mr Castleton, from Bridlington, East Yorkshire, was found to have a £25,000 shortfall at his branch in 2004. He was made bankrupt after he lost his legal battle with the Post Office.
Speaking about Ms Vennells’ evidence, he said: “She’s got a huge opportunity to get what she sees as the truth out there.
“I think it’s a huge stage for her, I think the paperwork is fantastic, to see what was being written at the time it’s really, really important for us to see that. And what she remembers really is kind of a background for me, the actual verbal evidence is not really that important.”
Asked about Ms Vennells breaking down in tears, he added: “She’ll never shed as many as I have, I’m afraid, or my family, or the rest of the victims or the wider group.
“Not that I have no empathy for that because I do, I understand completely.
“I’d imagine a lot of it’s nerves too and doing her best. I think she’s got a need or want to do the right thing.”
Matt Mathers22 May 2024 14:34
Paula Vennells should be made homeless, postmaster suggests
Rubina, a sub postmistress who was accused of taking £43,000 in 2010 and sentenced to a 12 months in prison, said Paula Vennells should be made “homeless”, Archie Mitchell reports.
When asked whether she wants to see Paula Vennells go to prison, she told Times Radio: “I don’t want Paula Vennells to go to prison because she won’t learn anything.
“The only way she’ll learn is everything being stripped of her, her assets, her mark against her name so that she can’t get employment, made homeless. That’s how I want her to pay back what she did to us”
“When people like [her] go to prison, they don’t learn anything. After three or four months or six months later they’ll be out.”
Matt Mathers22 May 2024 14:29
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