Sub-postmaster victims and Royal Mail’s Dame Moya Greene alike don’t believe Paula Vennell’s account
The account of the Post Office’s former chief executive about what she knew during key years of the firm’s scandal is not believed by the former CEO of Royal Mail, the inquiry into the injustice has heard.
Paula Vennells has been giving evidence as part of a three-day appearance at the inquiry into the impact of faulty Horizon accounting software, which led to the prosecution of more than 700 sub-postmasters.
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Paula Vennells breaks down in tears during questioning
In addition to the wrongful convictions for theft and false accounting, many more sub-postmaster victims generated large debts, lost homes, livelihoods and reputations and suffered ill health. Some died by suicide.
Widely not believed
The inquiry heard that Dame Moya Greene, the former Royal Mail CEO whom Ms Vennells worked alongside for many years, texted Ms Vennells in January of this year to express her disbelief at the wrongdoing denials.
Ms Vennells has long maintained – and reiterated on Wednesday – that she was unaware of the extent of flaws with Fujitsu’s Horizon software.
Sub-postmasters listening to the inquiry in the Fenny Compton village hall in Warwickshire, where dozens of sub-postmasters met for the first time in 2009 as they began their fight for justice, also said they did not believe Ms Vennells.
“She is blatantly, utterly lying, and it’s got to stop,” former sub-postmaster Sally Stringer told Sky News.
Dame Moya texted Ms Vennells after the airing of the ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, which reinvigorated interest in the scandal, saying: “When it was clear the system was at fault, the Post Office should have raised a red flag. Stopped all proceedings. Given people back their money, and then tried to compensate them from the ruin this caused in their lives.”
When Ms Vennells replied that she agreed, Ms Greene said: “I don’t know what to say. I think you knew”.
“I want to believe you. I asked you twice. I suggested you get an independent review reporting to you. I was afraid you were being lied to. You said the system had already been reviewed multiple times. How could you not have known?” her text said.
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Why she says she didn’t know
The question of how it was that she couldn’t have known was taken up the the inquiry’s lead barrister Jason Beer KC.
Ms Vennells core argument emerged early in questioning: she said she wasn’t informed of bugs because of the way information flowed within the organisation. She accepted that as CEO she was in charge of how information was communicated.
“I was too trusting,” she said.
Emotional testimony
Ms Vennells broke down in tears numerous times during her evidence, the first of which was when Mr Beer read out details of sub-postmasters who were not convicted, as juries accepted there were flaws with Horizon.
The inquiry had just been presented with evidence of Ms Vennells telling MPs in 2012, “Every case taken to prosecution has found in favour of the post office. There hasn’t been a case investigated where the horizon system has been found to be at fault”.
This belief, Ms Vennells said, was “a representation of the information that I was given” rather than proof of an unwavering belief that nothing had gone wrong.
‘Wait and see’ accusation
Criticism came from Mr Beer over the fulsomemess of Ms Vennells cumulative 798-page witness statement.
He asked if she was adopting a “wait and see” approach: “Let’s see what comes out in evidence. See what I’ve got to admit and then I’ll admit that?”
“Given you provided a 775-page witness statement that took seven months to write, could you not have reflected on what you should have done fully and differently within the witness statement?” he added.
Post Office Horizon IT scandal inquiry lead counsel Jason Beer KC.
Ms Vennells’ statement said that with the benefit of hindsight, there were “many things” she should have “done differently”, but she would wait for the inquiry to conclude to expand on that detail.
But she denied adopting a “wait and see” approach.
Rather, “It was simply a matter of time,” she said. “The inquiry asked me, I think, over 600 questions to 200 or 300 with subquestions in each. I went through probably hundreds of thousands of documents.”
Evidence to Parliament in 2015
A major question going into the inquiry was how Ms Vennells was able to tell Parliament in 2015 there was “no evidence” of “miscarriages of justice”.
On Wednesday morning, Ms Vennells said that was what she had been told “multiple times” by Fujitsu – that nothing had been found in Horizon.
Comic relief
Back in the village hall in Fenny Compton there were moments of laughter when Mr Beer asked Ms Vennells if she was “the unluckiest CEO in the United Kingdom?”
His question was asked “In the light of the information that you tell us in your witness statement you weren’t given… the documents that you tell us in your witness statement that you didn’t see. And in the light of the assurances that you tell us about in your witness statement that you were given by Post Office staff”.
‘Exculpatory’ remembering
Another line of questioning from Mr Beer was that Ms Vennells had a better memory of events and records that made her and the Post Office look good and a worse recollection of things that made her and her organisation look bad.
“Why is it that in your witness statement, when you refer to a recollection of a conversation that’s unminuted, undocumented, not referred to in any email there are always things that exculpate you that reduce your blameworthiness?” he asked.
That wasn’t her approach, Ms Vennells said.
Signing off a £300,000 legal bill to go after a £25,000 loss?
Sub-postmasters and those following the scandal likely will be listening out to see if Ms Vennells approved the legal bill to prosecute Lee Castleton, who was featured as a victim in the ITV drama.
Earlier this month former managing director Alan Cook told the inquiry Ms Vennells approved legal costs of £300,000 to prosecute Mr Castleton for a supposed £25,000 shortfall when she was a network director at the Post Office.
Business
Former union boss George Thomson denies being ‘too close’ to Post Office as he gives evidence at inquiry
The former head of a union for sub-postmasters has denied it became “too close” to the Post Office and was “flush with money”.
George Thomson, formerly of the National Federation of SubPostmasters (NFSP), also denied lacking sympathy for those who were wrongfully convicted during the Post Office scandal, which occurred following faults in the organisation’s Horizon IT system.
It comes after the TUC claimed earlier this year that the Communication Workers Union (CWU) had been blocked from effectively organising at the Post Office, and alleged the NFSP was given funds by the Post Office.
Mr Thomson, who served as its general secretary between 2007 and 2018, gave evidence at the Post Office inquiry on Friday.
When asked by inquiry counsel Julian Blake if he became “too close” to the Post Office, he replied: “No, I wasn’t.”
Mr Thomson later added: “We worked closely with the Post Office because we both needed to have a successful franchise – that’s the reality.”
The inquiry was shown an email sent on behalf of Mr Thomson in August 2013 which outlined plans for the Post Office and NFSP to sign a 15-year contract to represent all Post Office operators.
It included annual payments starting at £500,000 in 2013/14 and reaching £2.5m from 2017 to 2028.
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Alan Bates: Knighthood was a bit of a shock
Mr Thomson said it had taken “a lot of badgering” of the then Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells to agree to the deal. He also claimed her team “would have preferred the NFSP withered on the vine”.
Put to him by Mr Blake that they were significant figures, Mr Thomson told the inquiry the NFSP “took on new functions” as part of the deal.
When asked if the NFSP was financially dependent on the Post Office at the time when issues with Horizon were ongoing, Mr Thomson said the federation had lost 8,500 sub-postmasters in the previous 12 or 13 years, and that the money was “replacing what used to be membership money”.
He added: “It was never ever tied to Horizon.”
The inquiry was also shown a Computer Weekly article from May 2009 which detailed the cases of several high-profile sub-postmasters, including Sir Alan Bates.
The sub-postmasters told the magazine their union had “refused to help them investigate their concerns”.
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‘Did the mask slip in this email, Ms Vennells?’
Asked by Mr Blake why the NFSP did not help them, Mr Thomson said the federation had to seek permission from the Post Office first.
He said: “We did fight their cases but we asked the Post Office, ‘What are we to do as an organisation?’
“Every case that was brought to us, we took it up with the Post Office.
“You’re trying to make out that somehow we were flush with money… That’s not correct.”
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Mr Thomson said he had investigated 20 or 30 cases at the “highest level” during his time as general secretary, and would have tried to employ a computer expert had he known more about the issues with Horizon.
He said: “I’ve been around a long time – suspensions have always taken place, prosecutions have always taken place, under the manual system as well.
“We had a franchise that was in crisis and we always tried to help people.”
Mr Thomson described Horizon as “a strong system”. He added: “It’s a well-used system, and I still support it systemically as being very robust.”
However, some former sub-postmasters reacted with anger to his testimony on Friday.
They included Christopher Head, who wrote on X: “[Mr Thomson] and his organisation failed it is main overarching duty to protect its members. They are a disgrace and have no place today to be trying to represent the interests of current Postmasters, they are a sham…
“The NFSP should be completely disbanded.”
More than 700 sub-postmasters were convicted between 1999 and 2015 after errors in the Post Office’s Horizon IT system meant money appeared to be missing from many branch accounts when, in fact, it was not.
It has been branded the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history.
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