Paula Vennells is giving evidence to the Post Office public inquiry — the first time she has spoken in public about the Horizon IT scandal in close to ten years.
Between 1999 and 2015, nearly 1,000 postmasters were prosecuted on the basis of data from the faulty accounting software, and thousands more were forced out of their businesses, bankrupted or asked to pay back cash.
Vennells, the former chief executive, ran the company between 2012 and 2019, and postmasters believe she was at the heart of an orchestrated cover-up. Today, she is giving her side of the story.
How Vennells reacted to ‘mini crisis’
Vennells had to respond to a “mini crisis” in May 2013 when she was informed that new bugs had been detected in the system at a time when she was assuring people of Horizon’s reliability.
Writing to Alice Perkins, the former Post Office chair, Vennells said: “Some instances are coming to light where there is evidence that there are bugs in Horizon, which I am being told is normal in any large computer system. But I am still being assured that the system’s integrity is not in doubt.”
She went on to say that the issues were being dealt with and that meetings were taking place with Fujitsu to identify other possible unknown issues.
She added: “This is not good, Alice, but from what we have seen so far our response to bugs has been effective.”
Vennells said the issues were corrected and the Post Office board informed.
Post Office workers unswayed by tears
One said: “She’s very good isn’t she at passing the buck”
Sky News has gathered postmasters at a village hall in Fenny Compton, Warwickshire, to watch Paula Vennells’s evidence session.
Vijay Parekh, a former sub-postmaster, said he did not accept her apology: “She’s the one to blame as the head of the Post Office at that time.”
Sally Stringer, another former Post Office worker, said: “She’s very good isn’t she at passing the buck. It’s the classic of ‘not me guv’.
“She can put [the tears on] as much as she likes because it doesn’t rest with me.”
Vennells breaks down for third time
Vennells said an email described by an MP as a “smoking gun” piece of evidence in the scandal was in fact a sign of her “compassion” (Tom Witherow).
In an October 2013 email, the former chief executive described the cases of wrongly convicted sub-postmasters as “very disturbing”, after confirming she had read them.
This included a file related to Noel Thomas, now 77, who was jailed for false accounting in 2006 after being held responsible for £48,000 missing from the accounts of his post office on Anglesey.
Breaking down in tears for a third time, she said: “All of the cases that came into the mediation scheme were by nature disturbing, my purpose in circulating these was from a point of view of compassion.”
She said others in the business saw the postmaster cases as “a distraction of management time” and she wanted to prove it was not.
Asked why the investigation into the cases was shut down two years later, she said because nothing had been found. “My understanding was that every complaint was looked at in detail.
“I am very sorry that we didn’t reach the right conclusion on these cases.”
‘Goodness, this is very serious!’
Vennells said that she was only “sort of” pleased to know about concerns with the Horizon system in 2013 (Mario Ledwith writes).
In an email to a colleague, she asked whether problems were ongoing at the time and raised concerns that this information could be leaked if so.
Her comments followed a letter from Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom to Alice Perkins, the former Post Office chair, in which he flagged concerns raised during an ongoing forensic accounting review.
Addressing her “biggest concern” about the possibility of ongoing flaws in March 2013, Vennells questioned why she had not learnt of these issues earlier.
She wrote: “I don’t want us being defensive as I’m pleased to find these things out (sort of!) — but goodness, this is very, very serious if either true and/or leaked.”
‘Red-flag report was not brought to my attention’
Paula Vennells said a key independent report in 2013 highlighting deficiencies in the Horizon IT system was not shown to her (Laurence Sleator writes).
The 51-page report, by the independent consultants Detica, expressed “serious concerns” over the system dealing with fraud and non-conformance in the Post Office.
Asked about the conclusions, she said: “None of [them] were brought to my attention because I didn’t see the report.
“I find it very strange it wasn’t brought to my attention.”
Asked why senior officials kept report from her, she said: “I don’t know. I can’t speak for them. I was not under the impression people were intentionally keeping information from me.”
She agreed that if she had seen this report it would have been a “red flag” for her over potential Horizon issues.
‘Subbies with hands in the till’
Vennells was included in an email exchange in 2009 that stated that postmasters had been prosecuted, but she denies knowing of the Post Office’s prosecuting powers before 2012
JOSHUA BRATT FOR THE TIMES
Paula Vennells was sent an email talking about the private prosecution powers of the Post Office three years before she claimed to have been aware of it (Laurence Sleator writes).
The inquiry was shown an email from October 2009, which was also sent to her, from the former executive Alan Cook, who spoke of “subbies” with their “hands in the till” blaming technology.
The email says the Post Office has “prosecuted” postmasters in relation to this. However, Vennells claims she only became aware of the firm’s private prosecution powers in 2012.
Shown the email again, Vennells said she wouldn’t have understood it to mean that “the Post Office [was] the prosecuting authority”.
‘I didn’t know of internal criminal investigations’
Paula Vennells has admitted it was a “serious mistake” that before 2012 she was not aware the Post Office conducted its own criminal investigations into its staff (Laurence Sleator writes).
She said she became aware of it in 2012 when she looked in more detail about the private prosecutions. Before then she said she believed prosecutions were done externally.
Asked if she was surprised, she said: “Yes, a number of us were surprised.” She added it was “completely unacceptable” that she did not know.
“The only acceptable answer to the questions you are giving me on this is that I should have known and I should have asked more questions, and I and others who also didn’t know should have dug much more deeply on this.”
Defence of Horizon to MPs ‘not within my knowledge’
The former Post Office boss has admitted that guarantees about Horizon that she made in letters to MPs in 2010 and 2011 were wrong, but pointed the blame at others (Mario Ledwith writes).
Despite personally signing off the letters to the MPs Nicholas Brown and Mike Weir, Paula Vennells said that the answers contained within “were not within my knowledge” and had been sourced from specialist Post Office managers.
“I would never knowingly have put my name to a letter to an MP which contained inaccuracies,” she told the inquiry.
In the letter to Weir, Vennells had written: “There is no evidence at all that the Horizon system has in some way been at fault with respect to any financial irregularities discovered in a sub-postmasters account.”
Reflecting on the content of the letters, she said: “I accept that these statements were wrong.”
Statement written with ‘integrity, truth and honesty’
Vennells said: “I would never knowingly have put my name to a letter … which contained inaccuracies”
Paula Vennells said she wrote her witness statement with “integrity, truth and honesty” after being accused of only remembering things that are “exculpatory” of her culpability in the scandal (Laurence Sleator writes).
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?”
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.”
Vennells regrets asking for background on dead postmaster
Paul Vennells has said that she should not have questioned why a sub-postmaster took his own life or asked for “background” information on his mental health history and family issues (Laurence Sleator writes).
In an email sent in October 2013 when informed of the death of Martin Griffiths, she raised other explanations for his death.
“I know (sadly from experience in business and personally) that there is rarely a simple explanation for such deaths; even though it is often easier for those so closely affected to look for one. To help me brief this properly from the board, can you let me know what background we have on Martin and how/why this might have happened. I have heard but yet to see a formal report there were previous mental health issues and potential family issues.”
She said she was asking this because she had to relay the information to the board, adding: “I simply should not have said it. I should not have used these words.”
She denied allegations from Beer that she was trying to counter the narrative from Griffiths’s family, who said he committed suicide because of the Post Office.
The story of Martin Griffiths’s suicide is one of the most upsetting in the two-decade IT scandal (Tom Witherow writes).
The postmaster, from Ellesmere Port, stepped in front of a bus after being chased for £100,000 of losses, including money stolen in an armed robbery. His family blamed the “Post Office bully boys”.
The inquiry has just been shown Paula Vennells herself has been shown to be asking about Griffiths’s “other mental health issues”. She says it was to brief the board, and admits she should not have used those words.
The family’s ordeal did not stop there.
In April, his widow, Gina Griffiths, told The Times she believed she had been “silenced” after his death by the Post Office, due to an non-disclosure agreement (NDA) she signed to get a £140,000 settlement.
The settlement — which the family have called a “gun to the head” take-it-or-leave-it deal — was equivalent only to what a postmaster would get for redundancy. It took several years before the full story was known because of the NDA.
Vennells cries as she speaks of postmaster’s suicide
POST OFFICE HORIZON IT INQUIRY/PA
Paula Vennells broke down in tears for a second time as she discussed the suicide of a sub-postmaster accused of financial mismanagement (Laurence Sleator writes).
Martin Griffiths, 58, stepped in front of a bus and suffered fatal injuries in 2013. In the months before his death he was “hounded” by the Post Office over apparent shortfalls in his accounts.
The inquiry was shown an email from September 2013 in which Vennells asked about the suicide and noted “there are usually several contributory factors”.
Asked why she raised that element of suicide, she said: “Every email you will see from me about Mr Griffiths I start with him and how he was or how his family are. The Post Office took far too long to deal with it.
“One of other things I had to do as CEO was I would have to communicate something as serious to this to the board. I think I was trying to find out whether there was anything else behind it.
“I had a personal experience of a previous Post Office colleague who took their own life.” She then broke down in tears, taking a long pause and reaching for tissues.
As she tried to speak, Jason Beer urged her to “try and compose yourself if you can and then continue your evidence”.
‘I’m sorry for saying that postmasters borrow from till’
Paula Vennells has apologised over comments she made in which she suggested there was a “temptation” for some postmasters to borrow money from the till (Laurence Sleator writes).
The former chief executive told MPs in 2012 that “it appears that some sub-postmasters have been borrowing money from the Post Office account/till in the same way they might do in a retail business, but this is not how the Post Office works”, according to minutes from the meeting.
She apologised to the inquiry, saying this was an “assumption” based off a previous meeting she had with two senior Post Office executives. “First thing I’d say on that was to apologise because I’m very aware that is not the case and it was an assumption I made.”
She said she was told in a meeting that “infrequently a postmaster may borrow cash from post office account and put it back the next day, there was no suggestion it was done in terms of theft or fraud”.
‘Horizon was like Fort Knox’
Vennells and a former Fujitsu boss discussed how it was “implausible” that Post Office branch accounts could be altered.
In her witness statement, Vennells outlined a conversation with Duncan Tait, the chief executive for Fujitsu Europe, who assured her Horizon was “like a black box … similar to an aircraft flight recorder”.
“He said that even if someone wanted to, it was not possible to alter or break it,” she wrote.
It is now known that branch accounts were altered. Summarising their discussion, Vennells said the pair concurred it “was an implausible scenario” that a Fujitsu employee would hack into branch accounts.
She added: “He described how secure the system was — that even if someone had the motivation, it just wasn’t possible — Horizon was like Fort Knox.”
Vennells added that Sewell, former Post Office chief information officer, told her on several occasions from at least 2012 that Horizon accounts “were impossible to change without leaving an audit trail”.
Paula Vennells’s voice cracked and she dried her eyes with a tissue as she answered questions about a false statement she made to MPs in 2012.
She told parliamentarians that every Post Office prosecution involving Horizon had been successful, according to minutes shown to the inquiry, which was untrue in five cases where postmasters had won, or been acquitted at trial.
As she answered, she appeared to tear up: “I fully accept now that Post Office knew … sorry … that the Post Office knew … I completely accepted … personally I didn’t know that, and I’m incredibly sorry that that happened to those people and to so many others.”
A postmaster sitting in the inquiry room was heard saying: “Here we go.”
Protecting the business was priority
Paula Vennells has admitted an exchange in which she said her “priority” was to protect the business “reads badly today”.
She was shown an email she sent to senior bosses about Horizon in August 2015 which read: “Our priority is to protect the business and the thousands who operated under the same rules and didn’t get into difficulties.”
“I’m sorry, first of all, because this reads badly today,” she said, later admitting it was “badly worded”.
Jason Beer asked her why she was happy to “wheel out the message” that many branches had not experienced Horizon issues when many had complained.
“I was of the understanding cases we were looking at were a minority. The vast majority of those operating in the business had not experienced the same issues,” she said.
Vennells discussed bugs with chief information officer
Vennells greeted by a scrum of journalists and photographers outside Aldwych House this morning
CHIEF NEWS PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL
Vennells admitted that she directly addressed how Horizon convictions had overlooked how there were bugs in the system as far back as 2013 (Mario Ledwith writes).
She said that issue arose around discussions on cases, including that of Seema Misra, who was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010, while pregnant, after Fujitsu expert evidence was used against her.
She discussed unreliable evidence with Lesley Sewell, who was chief information officer at the Post Office.
Vennells recalled how the Fujitsu employee Gareth Jenkins, a lead engineer on Horizon who often gave evidence, had disqualified himself from doing so again, much to the annoyance of Sewell.
She recalled how Sewell said “the bugs were irrelevant to the cases in which the witness had given evidence”.
Vennells said in her witness statement: “The issue was presented to me by Lesley as more of a practical problem than (as I now know it was) a serious legal issue.”
She further claimed that she did not see the bombshell 2013 legal advice to the Post Office that outlined how Horizon cases may have been based on unreliable expert evidence until 2021.
Paula Vennells has said she was guilty of a “poor use of words” after using her witness statement to fully blame the Post Office scandal on the Horizon IT system (Laurence Sleator writes).
In her witness statement, Vennells wrote: “Their lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted as a result of the Horizon system. I am truly sorry.”
Jason Beer said this response was a “perpetuation of the culture” in the Post Office to blame the IT.
He asked: “Even after all the inquiry has revealed and the thousands of documents you have read, do you continue to think the issue was with the computer system as opposed to conduct, competence and ethics of those within the [Post Office]?”
“Is this a perpetuation of a culture that ran through the Post Office for the use of powers that it effected to use, and robustly, and instead blame the IT?”
She denied this and said it was “poor use of words” in her statement.
‘I think you knew,’ said Royal Mail boss
Moya Greene was chief executive of Royal Mail Group
SIMON DAWSON/GETTY IMAGES
A former senior official at Royal Mail suggested Paula Vennells knew about the IT issues with the Horizon system (Laurence Sleator writes).
In text messages shown to the inquiry from this year, Moya Greene, former chief executive of Royal Mail Group, messaged Vennells in January to discuss the public inquiry.
She said Nick Read, the chief executive of the Post Office, was a “poor witness” and predicted he would follow the former chairman Henry Staunton out of the organisation.
In the messages, Greene said: “I don’t know what to say. I think you knew.”
In response Vennells replied: “No Moya, that isn’t the case.”
Greene responsed: “I have supported you all these years to my own detriment … I can’t support you now after what I have learned.”
Vennells denies conspiracy
Paula Vennells says she does not believe there was a “conspiracy” among Post Office staff to deny her information (Laurence Sleator writes).
She said that the structure of the company meant she was not privy to certain key information.
“I think because of the way the reporting had been planned,” she said. “The layers of escalation selected around IT and Fujitsu was such that it didn’t give you a line of sight to what happened to an individual and we are seeing the terrible impact of what happened today.
“I may be wrong but that wasn’t the impression that I had at the time, I have more questions now but a conspiracy feels too far-fetched.”
Crucial advice ‘was not shared’
Paula Vennells has immediately put a series of colleagues in the firing line — naming senior lawyers, and in particular two legal counsels at the Post Office (Tom Witherow writes).
Asked if there was a conspiracy, she said “no”, adding that “individuals, myself included, made mistakes, didn’t see things, didn’t hear things”.
She said that the original version of crucial legal advice — including one that said an expert witness had misled trials — were not shared with executives, and were only summarised, saying she and the board did not get a true picture.
She refers to one by Brian Altman, KC, a senior criminal barrister, criticising the Post Office’s prosecution police. “That advice was never shared with me, the chief executive, or the board,” she said. “Had we seen it, we may well have asked very, very different questions.”
Unluckiest chief executive in the UK?
Paula Vennells said on reflection she was “too trusting” with Post Office staff when asked why she didn’t probe more on potential problems with the Horizon IT scandal (Laurence Sleator writes).
She was asked by Jason Beer, if she was the “unluckiest CEO in the United Kingdom” after her witness statement claimed she was not aware of many issues with the system.
He said: “In the light of the information that you tell us in your witness statement you weren’t given, in the light of documents that you tell us in your witness statement that you didn’t see and in the light of the assurances you tell us that were given by [Post Office] staff, do you think you’re the unluckiest CEO in the United Kingdom?”
She responded: “One of my reflections on all of us was I was too trusting. I did probe and I did ask questions and I’m disappointed where information wasn’t shared, and it has been a very important time for me as I have gone through [documents] to plug some of those gaps and remind me what I did see and perhaps haven’t remembered.”
Beer went on to list a catalogue of missed opportunities to address the faults in the IT system.
‘This will be difficult to listen to’
Paula Vennells has issued three apologies as she begins her evidence at the Post Office inquiry (Laurence Sleator writes).
“I would just like to say how sorry I am for all that sub-postmasters and their families and others have suffered as a result of all of the matters that the inquiry has been looking into all for so long … I am very, very sorry.
“I would also like to repeat the apology, which is in my witness statement, to Alan Bates, to Ron Warmington and Ian Henderson from Second Sight and to Lord Arbuthnot.
“My third apology is really about today because I will answer the questions truthfully and I’m very aware that [the answers] will be difficult to listen to for you and for me, and I ask your understanding in advance of that. Thank you.”
Second Sight are a fraud investigation service whose investigators were sacked weeks after they issued a damning interim report in July 2013.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, a Tory MP, led a parliamentary campaign to investigate the Post Office but relations with the firm broke down over a proposed mediation process.
The man asking the questions
Jason Beer, KC, the lead counsel to the inquiry, will be questioning Vennells today (Tom Witherow writes).
The senior barrister, of 5 Essex Chambers, has become something of a hero to postmasters for his penetrating questions, and occasional witticisms.
Yesterday in the inquiry, when his computer froze during questioning, he joked it was a “bug … or was it an anomaly”, in reference to the alternative “non-emotive” word for Horizon errors used by Post Office.
In another exchange last month, he asked another witness if an email sent to a colleague saying he was cynical about Horizon criticism was “top bants between mates”. “I would say yes,” came the reply from Rodric Williams, a Post Office lawyer.
Beer’s online biography lists him as a specialist in police law, inquests and public inquiries.
Vennells hoped to ‘ride this out’
She was paid £140,000 a year to sit on the boards of Dunelm and Morrisons
JEREMY DURKIN/PA
Paula Vennells remained a darling of the City and Whitehall establishment after she stepped down in 2019 (Tom Witherow writes).
Vennells was also appointed non-executive director at the Cabinet Office, appointed CBE for services to the Post Office and charity in the 2019 New Year’s honours list, and placed on the Church of England’s ethical investment committee. She was also paid £140,000 a year to sit on the boards of the retailers Dunelm and Morrisons.
This week, The Times reported claims she clung on to the role of chair of London’s Imperial NHS Trust, which paid £50,000 a year.
As the scandal exploded after the Post Office’s capitulation in the High Court, a senior source said her attitude was: “It’s time to put on the tin hats and ride this out.”
She only stepped down after a fellow director threatened to resign. She gave up her remaining public posts after 39 postmasters’ convictions were quashed in April 2021, but it was another three years before she volunteered to give back her CBE.
Read in full here: Vennells clung on to ‘plum’ NHS role after Horizon scandal
‘I don’t want an apology, I just want the truth’
Janet Skinner was wrongly sentenced to nine months in prison
JOSHUA BRATT FOR THE TIMES
Two postmasters have been speaking ahead of the inquiry (Tom Witherow writes).
Janet Skinner, a mother of two, was wrongly jailed, lost her house and became permanently disabled after the conviction for false accounting in 2007.
She told the BBC she “absolutely did not believe” victims would ever get to the truth. “I thought it would be buried for ever,” she said.
Addressing today’s evidence, she said: “When Vennells was given the position [in 2010] she had the perfect opportunity to right the wrongs of her predecessors.
“Now I just hope we don’t hear a lot of ‘we don’t recall, I don’t remember’. Did she know? And if she didn’t know, then why were the people below them in the position they were paid to do?”
Lee Castleton outside Aldwych House this morning
YUI MOK/PA
Lee Castleton, who was bankrupted by the Post Office in a 2007 civil case, said: “I’m really looking forward to it.
“I’m certainly not looking for an apology, I’m just looking for factual evidence.
“I’m just looking forward to the truth. There’s enough evidence to know there’s been a cover-up in one form or another. Who was given the facts? And what does the paperwork say?”
Postmasters have been told they can come for only one day
JOSHUA BRATT FOR THE TIMES
Vennells will face an audience of 180 postmasters in the hearing room gallery and an overflow room (Tom Witherow writes).
The seats were so sought-after that postmasters have been told they can come for only one day.
Amongst the wider public, tens of thousands will tune in online, where the hearing is streamed live on the Post Office Inquiry YouTube page.
The key question when she gives evidence over the next three days will be when she knew it was likely there had been miscarriages of justice at the Post Office (Tom Witherow writes).
The inquiry has already heard that the Post Office’s legal counsel was told in July 2013 that its leading IT expert witness had misled “several” trials by failing to tell court trials about bugs in the system.
This week, an email from Vennells, sent in October 2013, describing the cases of wrongly convicted sub-postmasters as “very disturbing” has been labelled the scandal’s “smoking gun”.
Two years later, Vennells told MPs at the business select committee that “if there had been any miscarriages of justice it would’ve been really important to me and the Post Office that we surfaced those”. The Post Office continued to deny there were systemic issues with the Horizon system until 2019.
Read in full: What did Paula Vennells know? The questions she must answer at Post Office inquiry
Vennells arrives with police escort
Paula Vennells this morning
CHIEF NEWS PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL
Paula Vennells has arrived to a scrum of journalists and photographers as she prepares to give evidence to the public inquiry on the Horizon IT scandal (Laurence Sleator writes).
The former chief executive of the Post Office was given a police escort as she made her way into Aldwych House, central London, at just before 8am this morning.
Asked by reporters what was “her message to subpostmasters” and “did you mislead parliament?”, she did not respond.
Under her stewardship the Post Office continued to deny there were any errors in the Horizon IT system until 2019 despite mounting evidence of wrongful convictions.
Today will be the first time she has spoken publicly on the issue for almost a decade as she begins three days of evidence.