The former chief executive broke down in tears today during a grilling over the scandal that ruined the lives of hundreds – including Alan Bates – at the Horizon IT Inquiry

Subpostmaster campaigner Alan Bates has said he has “no sympathy” for Ex-Post Office boss Paula Vennells after her tears on the stand during Day One of a three-day Inquiry.

Speaking outside Aldwych House after Ms Vennells gave evidence, Mr Bates said: “The whole thing is upsetting for everybody, including for so many of the victims. I’ve got no sympathy really.” Asked if he thinks she is genuinely sorry, he added: “I wonder about these apologies, these are just words.”

Mr Bates went on to say Vennells’ evidence was “like figure skating on the head of a pin all day”, adding: “Isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing? It’s only the first day of three so I don’t know where we’ll get to but it was good to see her on the stand.”

It comes after the former CEO broke down in tears during a grilling over the scandal that ruined the lives of hundreds including Alan Bates at the Horizon IT Inquiry. The former chief executive issued an apology over the wrongful prosecution of postmasters, saying: “I am very, very sorry.” She acknowledged she had made the lives of campaigners “so much harder”.

The inquiry was shown bombshell messages sent to by her friend ex-Royal Mail boss Moya Greene, who she wrote that she could no longer support her as: “I think you knew.” Ms Vennells later broke down as she apologised for telling MPs the Post Office was successful in every court case against subpostmasters. She also wept as she was questioned over the suicide of a subpostmaster.

The Horizon IT system wrecked the lives of Post Office workers when it mistakenly made it look like money was missing from their branches. Postmasters were blamed for the shortfalls and made to cover the losses, with more than 900 convicted including some who were put in prison. Several took their own lives.

Ms Vennells, who was Post Office chief executive from 2012 to 2019, is giving evidence over three days. She announced earlier this year that she would hand back her CBE amid public anger over the scandal in the wake of the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office. She was portrayed by Lia Williams in the programme.

Ms Vennells repeatedly denied there was a problem with Horizon, including telling the Commons business committee in 2015 that there was no evidence of miscarriages of justice at the Post Office. She was expected to be questioned on whether she lied to MPs, if she knew postmasters’ accounts could be secretly accessed and why she continued prosecutions despite concerns.

Follow live updates from the Post Office scandal Inquiry below

KEY EVENT

Alan Bates has ‘no sympathy’ for Vennells after her tears as Day One concludes

Campaigner Alan Bates has said he has “no sympathy” for Paula Vennells after her tears.

Speaking outside Aldwych House after Ms Vennells gave evidence, Mr Bates said: “The whole thing is upsetting for everybody, including for so many of the victims. I’ve got no sympathy really.”

Asked if he thinks she is genuinely sorry, he added: “I wonder about these apologies, these are just words.” He also said her evidence was “like figure skating on the head of a pin”.

Speaking outside Aldwych House after Ms Vennells gave evidence, Mr Bates said: “It was a bit like figure skating on the head of a pin all day, isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing? It’s only the first day of three so I don’t know where we’ll get to but it was good to see her on the stand.”

Joseph Gamp

First day of the Horizon Inquiry has come to an end

Sir Wyn has thanked those in the room for attending the first day of the 3-day Inquiry.

He also thanked them for not calling out or interfering verbally today.

Paula Vennells will return tomorrow for further questioning.

Vennells will return for Day 2 of the Post Office Inquiry tomorrow (
Image:
Post Office inquiry)

Joseph Gamp

Vennells says she ‘didn’t know about so-called Horizon ‘super-users’

Mr Beers has bough today’s session to a close with one final question for Paula Vennells. He ends the session by show8ingn a letter penned in 2016 where was was, in fact, told a numbvers of people at Fujitisu could access Horizon remotely – referred to as “super-users” of the software.

It warns that while they feel safe on their previous position this wasn’t possible legally, it was a “different positioning” over the issue of remote access than made in earlier statements. In response, Vennells notes the email is clear and follows up asking for clarification about what had been said about super-users before.

She is told they haven’t previously addressed it and their previous phrasing referencing remote access to edit branch data is “quite narrow”, as well as that it could lead to negative media coverage. Beer asks directly if she knew about super-users before 2016, which Vennells vaguely says she is not sure. The former CEO says adds she cannot remember and adds that she “clearly didn’t know at the time”.

Joseph Gamp

Vennells insists she had ‘an intention to answer questions honestly’

Paula Vennells insisted she approached the 2015 select committee meeting “with an intention to answer their questions as openly and honestly as I knew”. The Horizon IT Inquiry heard that Ms Vennells received an “addendum briefing” before the meeting which advised her on what she could say in the first instance, what she could say when pushed and what she could say if she was pushed further.

Ms Vennells said she did not ask for that strategy. She told the probe: “I would respond to the questions as they were asked and I would respond to the select committee openly and honestly with what I knew and could recall at the time under the pressure of the select committee. But I would not have gone in, you can’t do that, it’s like sitting here today, you can’t come into these sorts of very high pressure environments with a strategy as to how you are going to handle it.”

Asked if she thought it was an appropriate strategy to adopt, Ms Vennells said: “No…I have just said that I would have approached…I did approach the select committee with an intention to answer their questions as openly and honestly as I knew.”

Joseph Gamp

Vennells adopted ‘an odd approach’ before speaking to MPs

Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC accused Paula Vennells of adopting an “odd” approach before speaking to MPs. In 2015, she told MPs on the the business select committee that she had seen no evidence of miscarriages of justice and that there were no faults in the Horizon system.

On Wednesday, the inquiry was told of an email Ms Vennells sent before the select committee hearing saying she needed to tell MPs “it is not possible” to access Horizon remotely. Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked why she needed to say remote access was not possible.

Ms Vennells responded: ”I phrased this point very specifically and I can remember why I did this. Alice Perkins, not related to this particularly, but I can remember Alice Perkins saying to me at some stage, ‘Paula if you want to get the truth and a really clear answer from somebody, you should tell them what it is you want to say very clearly and then ask for the information that backs that up’, that was why I phrased this that way.”

Mr Beer said:”That’s an odd way of going about things, isn’t it? ‘I want to know the answer to the question, here’s the answer to the question, tell me I’m wrong’.” Ms Vennells added: “Well yes, I hoped they would do….I believed this was absolutely the case, I had an obligation going before the select committee to be able to share the information that I knew and be able to answer their questions correctly and this is what I was trying to ask for from the team. I was not in any way, if you’re suggesting this, trying to tell them what the answer should be.”

Joseph Gamp

Vennells: ‘Deeply regrettable’ that Fujitsu Horizon access documents were not shared

Mr Beer has quizzed Vennells by asking what investigation was carried out by the Post Office to find the documentation that showed how Fujitsu could alter data – which he says one witness described as ‘the Wild West’. He adds his team had been able to find evidence that shows the extent to which Fujitsu could amend transactions.

“I should have seen those documents, I didn’t know they existed,” replies Vennells. Beers asks in reply “So it wasn’t that the documentation wasn’t available, it is that it would be costly to find it?”

“No no, it would be costly to recreate it,” replies Vennells. The former CEO also admitted the existing documentation at the time had not been updated, which means that finding the latest version would be difficult.

Beer clarifies that he is talking about a different thing – he says he is talking about documents from Fujitsu, some of which were passed to the Post Office, saying they had a team with privileged rights that allowed them access to insert or amend transactions.

Vennells then replies: “That information wasn’t shared. Deeply regrettably.”

Paula Vennells seen arriving to give evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry (
Image:
AFP via Getty Images)

Joseph Gamp

Fujitsu’s access to transactions described as ‘Wild West’

After the board briefing, Paula Vennells agrees she had no information on which to conclude whether Fujitsu had used balancing transactions before 2010.

She says she was told: “It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to get the data to look at some of the questions about this because it didn’t exist: Either because it had been destroyed because of data retention policies but more likely because it wasn’t there any longer.”

Mr Beer interrupts: “Do you know what investigation was carried out to find that documentation? Because we’ve got it. We’ve got the documentation which shows – one witness described it as the Wild West – the extent to which Fujitsu could inject, amend, transactions, pre-2010, completely, before 2004, unregulated, unaudited, and unauditable.”

She replied: “I should have seen those documents. I didn’t know they existed.”

Joseph Gamp

Paula Vennells admits she didn’t know Fujitsu could access Horizon remotely

Jason Beer KC draws the inquiry’s attention to Paula Vennells’s witness statement, in particular a section regarding a letter from services firm Ernst & Young, which carried out a management audit.

They identified a risk that unrestricted access to privileged IT functions “increased the risk of unauthorised/inappropriate access which could lead to the processing of unauthorised or erroneous transactions”. Mr Beer says it is implicit in the statement that Fujitsu had remote access to Horizon – meaning individual post office accounting systems could be accessed.

“I don’t believe that I understood that degree of detail,” she says. “At the time, I had been promoted to managing director just a few months previously, and this was the first time I had come across an IT audit. I accept fully that this is what the document said, how much of that I really understood at the time, I’m not sure.”

Joseph Gamp

‘I do wonder what kind 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.”

Paula Vennells begun giving her evidence to the three day Inquiry today (
Image:
PA Wire)

KEY EVENT

Vennells says she routinely received updates on issues subpostmasters faced

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.”

KEY EVENT

Emotional Paula Vennells regrets referring to subpostmasters’ complaints as ‘noise’

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.”

Joseph Gamp

Vennells says she regrets that flagged concerns ‘took too long to address’

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.”

Joseph Gamp

What was included in email chain between Susan Crichton and Paula Vennells?

An email chain between former Post Office general counsel Susan Crichton and Ms Vennells was shown to the inquiry, in which Ms Vennells said “if it is an attempted suicide, as we sadly know, there are usually several contributory factors”.

Asked why she was raising contributory factors, she said she was “very sorry”, adding: “Every email you will see from me about Mr Griffiths, I start with him and how he was and how his family are. The Post Office took far too long to deal with it.”

She was also shown an email she sent to former general counsel and company secretary Jane MacLeod, ex-communications director Mark Davies, and current chief financial officer Alisdair Cameron. The email read: “Our priority is to protect the business and the thousands who operated under the same rules and didn’t get into difficulties.”

She told the inquiry on Wednesday: “I am sorry first of all because this reads badly today. That wasn’t how I intended it to be read. I had been told, and the inquiry has heard other people say the same, that nothing had been found and so my understanding at this time was that the way the business was operating was an acceptable way, and what I was trying to say here is that we needed to make sure that the business as it was operating remained a priority for us.”

Paula Vennells pictured at the Post Office inquiry today (
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Bradley Jolly

Paula Vennells admits using the word ‘noise’ in relation to staff complaints was ‘unwise’

Paula Vennells is being asked about documents that have been seen several times before by the inquiry. She replied to her staff about one complaint about scratchcards from a branch in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, “this complaint simply shouldn’t have reached me”. It goes on to talk about not wanting any additional “noise” about the Horizon IT system.

She says the words were “unwise” but “It did not in any way mean that I personally didn’t take issue seriously when they got to me. I regret this here, but there was an understanding that the system worked.”

Bradley Jolly

Paula Vennells says it was ‘wrong’ of Post Office to maintain that there were no systemic 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, Mr 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.”

Bradley Jolly

‘There is still a cover up and denial,’ subpostmistress says

One woman who was jailed after being accused of stealing £74,000 believes there is still a “cover up and denial” after Paula Vennells gave evidence.

Seema Misra, who was pregnant when she was locked up in 2010, said: “It’s a cover up and denial, it’s still a cover up, that’s what my take is.

“Was she emotional due to the scandal or the warnings she had been given before? They still don’t accept it, how on earth did authorities in high positions not know how the company works?”

Former sub-postmistress Seema Misra was jailed in 2010 (
Image:
PA)

Bradley Jolly

Subpostmaster said Paula Vennells will “never” shed as many tears as he has done

A subpostmaster who was made bankrupt after he lost his legal battle with the Post Office said Paula Vennells will “never” shed as many tears as he has.

Lee 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 PostOffice.

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.”

Bradley Jolly

Ms Vennells questioned on contractual obligation for subpostmasters

Mr Beer KC is now addressing the widely understood contractual obligation for subpostmasters to “make good” any losses.

This was widely interpreted by the Post Office to mean that “subpostmasters had to make good all losses, ie irrespective of the cause of them” which isn’t actually what the document said, but appears to have been what the Post Office enforced out of court for years.

But Ms Vennells says she cannot recall now what she understood the wording of the subpostmasters contract to have been at that time, saying: “I would have completely relied on the people whose job it was to determine what the contract did or didn’t say and how it was applied. I trusted this was a process that had been in place for many years, and it was run by an experienced team.”

Paula Vennells arrives at the Post Office Horizon IT system enquiry (
Image:
Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)

Bradley Jolly

Paula Vennells first aware of anyone questioning Horizon after a Computer Weekly article

Ms Vennells said, in her first written witness statement to the inquiry, which is 775 pages long, the first she was aware that anyone was questioning Horizon was after a 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”.

“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,” Ms Vennells added.

Bradley Jolly

Post Office Horizon IT inquiry resumes

The inquiry has now resumed for the afternoon, with Jason Beer KC continuing to ask questions of the former CEO.

Ms Vennells has already told the inquiry today that she has no idea why senior legal figures at the Post Office appear to have held back a key report from her, but says she saw no signs of a conspiracy.

Bradley Jolly

Paula Vennells ‘should have everything being stripped of her,’ says sub postmistress

Times Radio’s Ayesha Hazarika also spoke to Rubina, a sub postmistress who was accused of taking £43,000 in 2010 and sentenced to a 12 months in prison. When asked whether she wants to see Paula Vennells go to prison, she said: “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”

Paula Vennells gives evidence to the inquiry at Aldwych House, central London (
Image:
PA)

Bradley Jolly

Paula Vennells ‘displaying an incompetence of gargantuan scale’

Lord Arbuthnot, James Arbuthnot, a member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board said former Post Office boss Paula Vennells testimony is an “astonishing announcement of her ignorance” and is “displaying an incompetence of gargantuan scale”

Speaking to Ayesha Hazarika on Times Radio, he said: “It’s an astonishing announcement of her ignorance of what the organisation of which she was chief executive was actually doing and I think Sir William’s reaction was a bit of incredulity. How could you not know that your organisation was prosecuting hundreds and hundreds of sub-postmasters. The question is, is it credible? She was either telling the truth but displaying an incompetence of gargantuan scale or she was not telling the truth”

He also rejected her argument that she did not know about the prosecutions, adding: “For one thing, I wrote to Moira Green, her predecessor chief executive, in 2011 and got a letter back from her, from Paula Vennells, talking about the prosecutions. So, to say that she didn’t know until after she’d written the letter to me about prosecutions strikes me as being just not credible.”

Lizzy Buchan

The Inquiry has broken for lunch

Evidence will resume at 2.15pm.

Lizzy Buchan

Fujitsu boss described Horizon IT system as ‘Fort Knox’, Paula Vennells claims

 

In her first witness statement, Ms Vennells and the-then boss of Fujitsu Europe said it was “implausible” that the Horizon IT system could be accessed remotely.

Detailing her understanding of remote access as of July 3 2013, Ms Vennells said she asked Duncan Tait if a Fujitsu colleague could alter branch accounts remotely, and said his response was no and “we concurred it was an implausible scenario”.

She added: “Why would a Fujitsu colleague try to hack into a branch’s accounts? We couldn’t find any suitable explanation – there was no way they could benefit financially from such an action. The only possible reason would be a malicious act by a disgruntled employee.

“Duncan described the core of Horizon like a black box, ie., similar to an aircraft flight recorder; he said that even if someone wanted to, it was not possible to alter or break it.

“I had heard the black box description before. He described how secure the system was – that even if someone had the motivation, it just wasn’t possible – Horizon was like Fort Knox.

“I found it reassuring that the CEO of Fujitsu confirmed that there was no cause for concern and that the system could not be tampered with.”

 

 

 

Lizzy Buchan

Victim says she feels ’emotional’ for Vennells giving evidence to people with ‘eyes full of hatred’

Former subpostmaster Janet Skinner said she felt sorry for Paula Vennells, who is giving evidence to a room of people with “eyes full of hatred”.

Ms Skinner told PA: “I’ll be honest I felt quite emotional this morning. I actually felt emotional for her because she is up there and she has got all these eyes there that are just full of hatred towards her and that must be such an overwhelming, horrible, intense feeling.”

She said Ms Vennells “has brought it all on herself” before continuing: “This is her time on that stand to now put her side of the story out there.

“Everybody has chucked mud at her, it’s time for her to open up and be quite open and honest about who was at the forefront of it all.”

Ms Skinner was sentenced to nine months in prison in 2007 for false accounting. She was 35 at the time and had to leave her two children behind.

Lizzy Buchan

Paula Vennells admits she didn’t even know the extent of Post Office prosecutions until 2012

 

In an extraordinary moment, Paula Vennells says she did not know the extent of the Post Office’s criminal investigations and private prosecutions until 2012.

Jason Beer KC asks: “So between 2007 and 2012, you did not know that there was a department called POID, the Post Office Investigation Division, that it employed up to 100 people and that their job was to bring up criminal investigations around the country into your staff?”

Ms Vennells replies: “I did not understand the extent of what it was until 2012, and I’m very sorry for that.”

Asked why senior staff did not know this, she said: “It’s completely unacceptable that that was the case and that people, including myself, didn’t know.

“My only explanation for that is that it had been going on for so long, that it was an accepted reality, it was the status quo that I joined and accepted, I shouldn’t have done.”

 

 

 

KEY EVENT

7 explosive texts show Paula Vennells confronted by pal over Post Office scandal

Bombshell text messages show Paula Vennells was accused by a friend of secretly knowing about problems with the Post Office IT system.

Former Royal Mail boss Dame Moya Greene told the ex-Post Office chief executive: “I can’t now support you.” In a text exchange after the ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office aired, Dame Moya wrote: “I think you knew.”

Read the full piece here.

Lizzy Buchan

Inquiry pauses for a break

The Inquiry has taken another short break. It’ll be back in a few minutes time.
 

 

Lizzy Buchan

Paula Vennells accused of trying to ‘diminish blameworthiness’ in 775-page witness statement

Paula Vennells was accused of writing her bumper witness statement to include only things that are “exculpatory” of her.

Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked: “Would this be right, you have no problem remembering things that put responsibility or attribute blame to others?

“Why is it that you can remember things that are exculpatory of you that tend to diminish your blameworthiness?”

Ms Vennells replied: “No I don’t believe that’s the way I approached my statement at all. I approached it with the intention of integrity, truth and honesty.”

KEY EVENT

Vennells apologises for saying subpostmasters had been ‘tempted to put their hands in the till’

Paula Vennells apologised for saying subpostmasters had been “tempted to put their hands in the till”.

The controversial comments from 2012, previously covered by the Inquiry, provoked fury from victims.

She said: “That’s a more difficult one to talk about. The first thing I would say on that is to apologise because I’m very aware that that was not the case and it was an assumption I made.”

She explained the assumption was based on “examples of cases” and what she had been told.

Of her claim that the Post Office had never lost a case, Ms Vennells said that is what she was told in a board meeting in January 2012, adding: “It was an understanding in the organisation that this was the case.”

“That the Post Office had a 100% hit rate?” Jason Beer KC asked.

“I don’t think it was mentioned that way but yes in terms of the way that it’s described here and clearly that was completely inaccurate in many different ways,” Ms Venells replied.