Paula Vennells latest: Key moments from Thursday's evidence from former Post Office CEO

The Post Office inquiry will resume on Friday, 23 May.

Paula Vennells shed tears as she was asked about her stepping back from decisions about group litigation as a result of a family situation.

"Because of a family situation I had to step back from my role as general executive sort of from January 2019 onwards ... and then much more from March," she said.

Counsel for the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked her: "Is this right - although you make the point that through personal circumstances your role in the strategy and direction of group litigation diminished during 2019... is that right?"

She wept as she said: "Yes that's right."

Paula Vennells has agreed that the Post Office strategy 'even in 2019' was to minimise negative coverage.

Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked about an email in which Vennells said that injunctions and "demands" of apology had been used with the media to ensure better coverage of the Post Office

"Yes certainly demanded apologies where the business felt that it had been misrepresented and defended Horizon yes because I.. had confidence in the system. I regret that hugely now," she said, explaining that she hadn't used injunctions but had considered legal advice.

Vennells was asked about an email she sent to 'PR guy' Mark Davies, saying she had asked her husband for a 'non-emotive' word to describe bugs.

"I shouldn't have engaged in this at all," she said. "We should have said bugs"

"Did you consider the word computer bugs, glitches or defects to be emotive," counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked.

"In my own mind, this seemed a... it isn't now, I fully accept that... it seemed a reasonable request because the two bugs we were dealing with, and this is wrong, they were two bugs which had been fixed. The business responded to them appropriately and what I was trying to do was avoid... misinterpretation."

Vennells was asked about an email in which she said that "all press, even local press (especially local press), should be scoured for negative comment and refuted".

She said it was an ambition to challenge poor coverage, if the coverage was inaccurate in the Post Office's view.

Vennells said: "It was important to me that where the Post Office was misrepresented that that should be corrected, and especially at a local level because local Post Offices were so important to people."

Paula Vennells agreed her email which sought to “minimise compensation” for subpostmasters in the mediation scheme sounded like they were only welcome if they accepted a “pat on the head and a token payment”.

Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC said: “You never intended to pay out any substantial figures in compensation for those issues at all, did you?”

Vennells replied: “No, that’s right. Not in terms of the mediation scheme, because that was not what I had understood it would do.

Beer said: “You wanted to give them a meagre sum and an apology without really understanding or investigating what the cause of their problems was, didn’t you?”

Vennells said: “No, that isn’t the case. All types of cases were welcomed into the scheme, but my understanding at the beginning of it was very different to what it turned out to be.”

Beer went on: “Everyone was welcome so long as they had a pat on the head and a token payment when they left?”

The former Post Office boss replied: “I agree that it sounds like that now. This was not the case at all.”

Beer added: “You wanted everyone to get the bare minimum to forget all of this and move on, didn’t you?”

Ms Vennells said: “No.”

Paula Vennells was asked if the Post Office had a private hope of paying out nothing to subpostmasters who were raising concerns through the mediation scheme and were out of pocket after the Post Office forced them to "make good" lost money.

"Was it always your intention that token payments should be made," Jason Beer KC asked.

"No... that word has been used elsewhere i've seen it..." Vennells said.

"Attributed to you," Beer cut in.

"It wasn't meant in the negative sense that it could be assumed," she said, adding that she had been told by legal counsel "sometimes, only an apology is necessary",

Beer went on to ask: "Why did you write an email in which you expressed a hope that mediation was a means to avoid or minimise compensation?"

Vennells talked around the topic before saying: "Because that was what we discussed... but not as the purpose of doing it."

"A hope?" Beer said.

"Possibly yes," Vennells said.

The inquiry will resume shortly.

Paula Vennells was asked what an email by 'PR guy' Mark Davies meant when it said "we need to take the sting out" of the Second Sight report before it was published.

Vennells said: "I'm not entirely sure."

Paula Vennells said she even one wrongful prosecution was unacceptable.

"Any wrongful prosecution, any at all - one - would have been unacceptable," she said. "there was a concern about the number of prosecutions the Post Office had conducted... there was a view that perhaps fewer than that (5%) would have been wrongful convictions."

Asked how the board reacted, Vennells said she couldn't recall.

The inquiry is discussing a 2013 paper by Post Office general counsel Susan Creighton that Paula Vennells took to the board.

Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC said Susan Creighton previously told the inquiry she spoke to Vennells saying there would be many successful claims against the Post Office arising from past wrongful prosecutions.

Vennells responded: "I have no recollection of that whatsoever."

She later added: "I would not cover anything up in this process, I'm sorry because this is an important point. If Susan had explained that to me very clearly - why in her paper did it say 5%? I never once withheld information from the board.. I am very sorry but my recollection on that is I don't recall it."

She wasn’t aware that the Post Office was carrying out investigations and prosecutions. She didn’t know much about the computer system. She was too trusting of her subordinates, and the management team around her, writes Matthew Lynn for The Telegraph.

On the basis of her evidence to the public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal this week, it would be surprising if the hapless former chief executive Paula Vennells actually knew what a stamp looked like, or what colour post boxes are usually painted. Despite her illustrious career, and her huge salary, her main defence appears to be that she had no idea what was going on within the organisation she was paid to run.

Read the full story from The Telegraph.

Paula Vennells has been asked to explain what she means by systemic issues, after she said Second Sight's report had found no systemic issues with the Horizon system

Jason Beer KC asked her: What do you understand no systemic issues with the Horizon system to mean?"

She replied: "At that time, my understanding... because we were trying to make the clarification so there could be no misunderstanding was that they had found no systemic issues with the technology."

When she was pressed on what systemic issues meant, she said: "Something that was... um wide ranging across the system..."

He pointed out that the Post Office "went on to use this phrase, year in year out to defend the system".

Paula Vennells was asked whether she felt the focus of the Second Sight report should be on whether there were weaknesses in the Horizon system.

"I don't remember personally ever sort of feeling that I had instigated the use of the word systemic," she said. "...I imagine the miscarriage of justice point was a conversation with Susan [Crichton, the Post Office’s general counsel] because I wouldn't have expected forensic accountants to be working on issues of justice and law."

Paula Vennells did not accept that finding out there were bugs in the Horizon IT system was “world changing information”.

Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC said: “You tell us time and time again in your witness statement that up until May 2013 you had been told time and time again that there were no bugs in Horizon.”

“Yes,” Vennells replied.

Beer asked: “Isn’t this world changing information for you?”

Vennells accepted it was “information that changed” but later added, when asked the same question: “Sorry what I’m not getting across clearly enough was that this was important but I was reassured at the same time that these bugs had been dealt with.”

The barrister asked: “Is that reassurance anywhere in writing or is it one of these corridor conversations?”

Vennells said: “I think it is in writing in the Second Sight interim report.”

Ex-Post Office boss Paula Vennells followed a “grossly improper” suggestion to not review all subpostmaster prosecutions after her communications chief said it would end up “front page news”, the Horizon IT inquiry has heard.

The probe was shown an email exchange between Vennells and then director of communications Mark Davies in July 2013 in which she said she would “take your steer” after he said looking at all past cases would be “in media terms… very high profile”.

Read the full story from PA

Paula Vennells has agreed that the “right and honest” thing to do in response to a letter from the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) asking for information about the Horizon system would be to tell them of concerns about the reliability of leading Horizon engineer Gareth Jenkins’ evidence.

The Horizon IT Inquiry heard a letter from the CCRC, sent to the then-Post Office chief executive in July 2013, said: “For obvious reasons, we have read the recent media coverage concerning the Post Office Horizon computer system with interest.”

The letter asked for information directly from Post Office, “especially accurate information as to number of criminal convictions that might be impacted by the issue and what action is proposed, or being taken, in that respect”.

Jason Beer KC asked: “The right and honest thing for the Post Office to have done would be to have let the CCRC know, and know promptly, over its concerns about the truthfulness and reliability of the evidence that Gareth Jenkins had given to court wouldn’t it?”

Vennells said: “Yes it would.

Beer went on: “That didn’t happen for years and years did it?”

“I understand that to be the case now,” Vennells replied.

Paula Vennells said she was not told that leading Horizon engineer Gareth Jenkins was an unsafe witness.

Vennells was informed that there was a problem with some of the expert evidence, given by Jenkins, about bugs on which the Post Office had relied on in prosecutions, including the conviction of Seema Misra, the inquiry heard.

When questioned on whether she asked who this witness was, she said: “I think I was told that it was someone who worked for Fujitsu who was very competent on the system.”

She told the inquiry she did not ask how many cases he gave evidence in.

Questioned on whether she asked what the Post Office was doing as a result of its concern that Jenkins failed to mention in cases knowledge of bugs, Vennells said: “I was told that we were going back looking at or that Cartwright King were going back and looking at cases.

“I understood because that was the obligation that one had to do was that any case that he had given evidence in needed to be given this evidence around these two bugs even if it didn’t affect those cases.”

She denied being told he was an unsafe witness.

The Post Office inquiry will resume after a break.

As former Post office CEO Paula Vennells answered questions at the Post Office inquiry, a former subpostmistress had her conviction relating to the Horizon scandal quashed in court this morning after a 20 year fight for justice.

Sushma Blaggan, 62, ran Dale Acre Post Office in Litherland, Merseyside, with her husband Narrinder, 58, running the connected retail shop.

Like hundreds of others, the couple began to experience problems following the installation of the Horizon accounting system.

Read the full story from the Liverpool Echo.

Paula Vennells agreed that had the Post Office decided in 2013 to review all prosecutions of false accounting, it “may well have” avoided a “lost decade” until miscarriages of justice involving subpostmasters were discovered.

In an email dated July that year, Vennells asked for thoughts on why all cases of false accounting “eg over the last 5-10 years” would not be reviewed.

Counsel to the Horizon inquiry Jason Beer KC asked: “Do you agree your nascent idea here of a review of all prosecutions of false accounting, if it had been carried into effect, may have avoided a lost decade until miscarriages of justice were discovered?”

Vennells paused for a short moment before responding: “It may well have done. It may well have done.”

Beer asked: “Do you think the failure to carry into effect the idea that you posit here was a missed opportunity?”

Vennells said: “At the time I and the board and everybody else involved in… what took place after this particular point felt that that was completely the right way to do this. We were concentrating on individual cases.”

Members of the public audibly groaned during the Post Office inquiry as Paula Vennells claimed "I really do not remember" the extent to which she took the advice of the Post Office 'PR guy' about how many cases to investigate.

Vennells confirmed that she had remained in contact with former Post Office communications director Mark Davies after she left the company.

Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked: “Did you exchange messages with him about media statements that you might make and the media lines that you might take in the announcement of this inquiry, for example?”

Vennells replied: “I believe the inquiry has texts that show that.”

Beer continued: “Even though you’d moved on, he was still advising you into 2020 as to the lines to take in your media statements?”

Vennells said: “I had kept in touch with Mark Davies for reasons that were very personal to him and I think he offered that advice at the time.”

Paula Vennells was asked why the Post Office is not looking back on all cases of false accounting, rather than just looking back over cases in the last 12-18 months.

Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC showed Vennells an email from former Post office communications director Mark Davies that advises not looking back on all cases

"The email that you had sent, to which this is a response, posits should we look back 12-18 months ... and this says 'you can't do that, you'll be on the front page'. This is a grossly improper perspective isn't it?" Beer asked Vennells.

"Yes it is," Vennells agreed.

The moment they had been waiting for. After decades of misery, sub-postmasters from across the land descended on London to face down the elusive Paula Vennells, the woman they blame for ruining their lives, writes Gordon Rayner for The Telegraph.

Having gone to ground after becoming “the most hated woman in Britain” over her role in the Horizon IT scandal, the former chief executive of the Post Office was finally being dragged into the limelight for her first public appearance since 2015.

Read the full story from The Telegraph.

The inquiry has taken a short break.

Paula Vennells denied knowing about a conference at a barristers’ chambers in which lawyers discussed commissioning an independent report on the Post Office’s Horizon system as the “highest risk response”.

According to a “summary of conference” at Maitland Chambers in June 2012, which records former Post Office general counsel Susan Crichton in attendance, it was said the findings of an expert report would not resolve the problem and the Post Office will be “damned if they do and damned if they don’t”.

Vennells told the Horizon IT Inquiry she was not told about the meeting.

The inquiry heard notes from the meeting read: “The proposal to instruct an independent expert to prepare a report on the Horizon system is the highest risk response to the issue.”

Vennells said this was not communicated to her.

Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells said the company wanted reassurance the Horizon IT system could be relied upon but denied wanting to influence the work of independent forensic accounts.

Second Sight was drafted in to independently review cases involving Horizon in 2012.

Asked if after reading a line in their interim report that there were “no systemic defects” in the system, the Post Office “paraded that conclusion”, Vennells said: “It did come to that conclusion in its interim report.

“There is no way I would have wanted to persuade Second Sight on something they were not prepared to say and I don’t believe Second Sight would ever have agreed to that.”

“If they came to that conclusion in their interim report, that was their conclusion.”

Beer asked: “Isn’t that what the Post Office wanted to drive them to and isn’t this the evidence of such driving?”

Vennells replied: “The Post Office certainly wanted the reassurance that the Horizon system could be relied upon – that has been the objective all the way through this. At no stage did I get the sense that anybody in the Post Office was going to be able to influence Second Sight over what conclusions they came to.

“I would be very surprised if that was the case here.”

Paula Vennells said she had no inkling that subpostmaster convictions were unsafe in May 2013 despite an email from lead campaigner Alan Bates which said he was “surprised” she had not offered to meet “bearing in mind what has been discovered so far”.

Referring to the work of forensic accountants Second Sight in the email from 21 May 2013, Bates said: “Bearing in mind what has been discovered so far, I for one am surprised that we haven’t yet met to discuss the implications.

“Whilst I appreciate that the majority of the issues began under previous regimes and you have expressed a genuine willingness to address the concerns that JFSA (Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance) has been raising, these issues are still continuing.

“I have little doubt that it is now feasible to show that many of the prosecutions that POL (Post Office Limited) have pressed home should never have taken place.”

Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked former Post Office CEO Vennells: “Would you have been very concerned reading an email like this that the person representing a key stakeholder, JFSA, was saying that the prosecutions, and many of them, that the Post Office had brought, ought never to have taken place?”

She replied: “I was concerned to get the email from Alan, certainly. The point he was making about prosecutions was the point the JFSA made for a number of years – that wasn’t new news to me at this stage.”

Beer continued: “Is that how you would have thought of it, that this is just Mr Bates saying something that he’s always said?”

The former Post Office boss replied: “No, not at all.”

Beer then said: “Had you been given any inkling that anything had emerged that might undermine the safety of convictions?”

Vennells responded: “No.”

A Post Office solicitor was concerned that including former subpostmistress Seema Misra’s case in an independent review into the Horizon IT system “would be a red rag to a bull”, the inquiry heard.

Misra, who ran a Post Office in West Byfleet, Surrey, was jailed in 2010 after being accused of stealing £74,000. She was pregnant at the time.

The inquiry heard Alwen Lyons, former company secretary, emailed chief executive Paula Vennells in June 2012 expressing former Post Office general counsel Susan Crichton’s concerns about including Misra’s case in the independent review.

Lyons wrote: “The issue that came to light with the list of MP cases was that they included the Mishra (Misra), you will remember the case and the publicity, she went to prison and had her baby whilst in there.

“The husband got publicity through radio and press.

“Susan’s anxiety, and she raised this at the meeting with Alice before you joined, was whether now contacting her to tell her we review the case would be a red rag to a bull.”

Asked if she shared Crichton’s concerns that even contacting Misra “would be a red rag to a bull”, Vennells told the inquiry: “No.”

Paula Vannells is being asked about correspondence she had with former subpostmaster Alan Bates, who has been prominent in fighting for justice for subpostmasters.

In an email in 2013, Vennells told Bates it was too early in the investigation to suggest things had been discovered that called into question the integrity of Horizon or the validity of prosecutions - and that it would be wrong to suggest this was the case.

Asked by counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC where she had got this information and if she was getting feedback from Second Sight, Vennells said: "I would have talked to whoever was leading the work on this... I am almost certain that when I got Alan's note that I went to the team and said I've had this note, what's the current status."

Victims of the Post Office scandal have reacted to Paula Vennells' first day of evidence.

Former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells has been asked about her decision to go ahead with a review of the Horizon system by Second Sight, as opposed to Deloitte.

"I felt very strongly that we needed an organisation who would be able to work well with subpostmasters – I was concerned that any one of the Big 4... would have come across as too corporate... I don't recall looking at the proposals in detail at the meeting," she said.

Questioned on whether a deliberate choice was made to choose forensic accounting firm Second Sight over Deloitte to review independently the Horizon system because the former’s proposal was “much narrower in scope” and “only looked at a sample of past cases”, Vennells said: “From a personal point of view, I would say that is absolutely not the case.

“I have no recollection of that at all.”

What to know about Paula Vennells as she appears before the Post office inquiry for a second day of questioning.

Read the full story from The Telegraph.

The inquiry has retstarted for Paula Vennells' second day of questioning over the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, which is kicking off by looking at the Second Sight investigation.