by The five key moments from the first morning of Paula Vennells’ evidence to the Post Office IT Horizon Inquiry.
1. ‘I think you knew’
The inquest in central London heard that the former Royal Mail chief executive sent a text to Ms Vennells in January saying: “I think you knew.”
Dame Moya Greene, who stepped down from her Royal Mail role in 2018, contacted Ms Vennells after the current head of the Post Office gave evidence to a parliamentary select committee.
Dame Moya sent a message to Ms Vennells saying she thought Nick Read, who took over as Post Office chief executive from Ms Vennells in 2019, was a “poor witness”.
In a later message shown to the inquiry, Dame Moya said: “I don’t know what to say. I think you knew…”
Ms Vennells replied: “No Moya, that is not the case.”
When asked what she thought she was denying, Ms Vennells told the inquest: “I think Moya was suggesting that maybe there was some conspiracy as you mentioned earlier and, as I said, there wasn’t I believed that was so.
“Maybe she was saying I was – no, I think it’s the same thing – I was going to say about a cover up but I think it’s the same thing.”
2. ‘I’m so sorry’
Ms Vennells began her evidence at the inquiry by making a statement in which she repeatedly apologized to the hundreds of sub-masters accused of theft and fraud, many of whom were jailed and some who took their own lives. .
She also apologized to Alan Bates, the sub-master who led the fight for justice, Lord Arbuthnot, who as an MP helped with the campaign, and to the authors of a report on the Horizon IT scandal by Second Sight, the accountants forensic.
After asking permission to make a brief statement before giving evidence, she told the inquiry: “I want to say, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to do this personally, how sorry I am to all the sub-masters and to their families. and others who have suffered from all the matters that the inquiry has been looking at for a long time.
“I followed and listened to all the human impact statements and I was deeply moved.”
She said: “I’m really sorry. I would also like to repeat the apology in my witness statement to Alan Bates, Ron Warmington and Ian Henderson of Second Sight and Lord Arbuthnot.
“I, and those I worked with, made their jobs that much harder and I’m very sorry for that.”
3. Break down in tears
Ms Vennells broke down in tears as the inquiry began to discuss the Post Office’s response to the suicide of sub-masters wrongly accused of criminal offences.
She was asked about her reaction to the news that sub-master Martin Griffiths was dangerously ill in hospital after being hit by a bus.
At the time, Mr Griffiths was being unfairly blamed for £100,000 shortfalls in his championship.
Responding to questions about why Ms Vennells emailed Susan Crichton, the general counsel, saying there were usually “a number of contributing factors” and asking if the police were involved, Ms Vennells said: “There was experience I personally had a previous Post Office colleague take his own life and I called the family and spoke to the father who explained to me that there were other issues and I imagined…” before crying, cover his face with a tissue.
She stopped for a while to compose herself. She then continued: “In this particular case, I spoke to the sub-master’s father who had told me that there were other factors that contributed to his son’s death and they were very grateful for the call I made.”
Returning to Mr Griffiths, Ms Vennells said: “In the case of Mr Griffiths, I also offered to do the same and the crown offices general counsel told me that was not necessary and there were other people in the loop. “
Ms Vennells also apologized to Mr Griffiths’ family.
4. Too curious but too confident
There was a silent burst of laughter in the hearing room when Ms Vennells told the inquest that she was sometimes criticized for being “too weird”.
The former chief executive defended herself as someone who asked questions within the business.
She said: “I’ve sometimes been criticized in team development events for being too weird and getting too much into people’s territory.”
When asked if she was the UK’s unlucky chief executive, she replied: “I was given as much information as the inquiry heard. There was information that I wasn’t given and others didn’t get as well.
“One of my thoughts on all of this is that I trusted too much.”
5. I assumed that people had a hand in the till
Ms Vennells told the inquiry that a statement she gave to MPs in 2012 that sub-masters were “tempted to put their hands in the till” was based on “assumption”.
During an appearance before a parliamentary committee that year she said that the Post Office had never lost a prosecuted case and that when the Horizon system was investigated it was not found to be at fault.
Of the comment she made that sub-masters were being tempted, she told the inquiry: “That is more difficult to discuss. The first thing I would say about that is to apologize because I know that was not the case and I made an assumption.”
She explained that the assumption was based on “case examples” and what she was told.
Commenting that the Post Office had never lost a case, Ms Vennells told the inquiry she drew that information from what she was told at a board meeting in January 2012, adding: “It was understood within the organization that was the story. .”
“That the Post Office had a 100 percent hit rate?” Jason Beer asked KC.
“I don’t think it was stated that way, but it is in terms of the way it is described here and clearly that was completely inaccurate in many different ways,” she replied.
