Former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells’ Final Inquiry Testimony Draws Laughter

On the concluding day of the Horizon IT scandal inquiry, former Post Office chief Paula Vennells stated that her senior team withheld crucial information from her, though she affirmed “she has no desire to point the finger at others”. During a closing statement, Ms. Vennells’ legal representative identified several former colleagues, among them Angela van den Bogerd, alleging they failed to disclose relevant facts concerning the scandal to her. Sub-postmasters attending the inquiry reacted to Ms. Vennells’ remarks with groans, and her assertion that she did not wish to assign blame was met with laughter. Over 900 sub-postmasters faced prosecution due to account discrepancies stemming from defects within the Horizon IT system. Concurrently, on Tuesday, the government announced its intention to provide compensation to sub-postmasters who incurred losses from account shortfalls in the Post Office’s pre-Horizon IT system, known as Capture. The government indicated it has requested the Post Office to “urgently review its files” to enable criminal cases review bodies to “ensure no one was wrongfully convicted of a Horizon-style injustice”. The Capture accounting system operated from 1992 until 1999, at which point Horizon superseded it. On the inquiry’s concluding day concerning Horizon, Ms. Vennells’ lawyer, Samantha Leek KC, asserted that across the entire public hearing, “there has been nothing to show that she acted in bad faith”. Ms. Leek stated that Ms. Vennells “cannot, and does not, try to hide from the fact that while chief executive she did not manage to uncover the truth about the extent of the bugs, errors and defects” within the software. However, “she simply did not get the information which she ought to have been given by her senior team, whom she trusted and to whom she delegated responsible roles”. She further added, “Ms Vennells does not know why key information was not passed on to her.” Ms. Vennells served as the Post Office’s chief executive from 2012 to 2019, having previously held the position of network director at the organization for five years. Her testimony represents one of the final submissions in the protracted inquiry into the Horizon scandal, which commenced in September 2020. The inquiry has heard from 298 witnesses, obtained 780 witness statements, and processed over 2.2 million pages of disclosure. Edward Henry KC, representing certain sub-postmasters, informed the inquiry earlier this week: “People were ruined, people were bankrupted, people were imprisoned, there were atrocious miscarriages of justice, people died.” He added that whether the board and the executive were aware of these injustices from the outset constitutes an irrelevant diversion. Post Office executives’ “refusing” to acknowledge that Horizon could produce shortfall errors had “created a terrible risk,” he stated, further remarking that “it was a recipe for certain disaster.” A legal representative for the Post Office described the inquiry as “a humbling experience.” Nicola Greaney KC asserted that the scandal originated from “fundamental structural and governance failings,” but maintained that the current Post Office “is a different organisation from the one that was in place during the failures of the past.” She acknowledged that the Post Office “still has a long way to go to reset its relationship with postmasters and the public.” On Monday, several lawyers representing victims of the scandal indicated in their closing statements that their clients continued to await compensation. The prosecution of sub-postmasters commenced months after the Post Office introduced Horizon in 1999, continuing until 2015, and culminating in one of the most extensive miscarriages of justice in British history. Maureen McKelvey, who operated a Post Office in Clanabogan, Omagh, from 1990 to 2001, stated she was still awaiting financial redress. She remarked, “I have been made to feel like a beggar with my hand out waiting for compensation.” A legal counsel for the Department for Business and Trade informed the public hearing: “It realises that every day that postmasters and their families continue to wait for full and fair financial redress is a day too long.” He further stated that the department would “continue to work hard to make improvements to the schemes.”