If Paula Vennells’ first day on the witness stand was memorable for her tears and self-justification as she faced public scrutiny for the first time in nine years, her second was less dramatic but more substantial.
During her seven years as chief executive, hundreds of subpostal agents were sent to prison based on false evidence presented by the Post Office’s Horizon IT system.
Vennells’ defense is that despite her experience – she held senior roles for five years before taking on the top job – she simply didn’t know.
She spent much of the first day establishing how complete her ignorance was.
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She didn’t know there were bugs in the Horizon system before she became CEO. She didn’t know that agency accounts could be accessed remotely.
She didn’t even know that the Postal Service ran its own processes, a power it has held since the days when Dick Turpin was a greater threat to the bottom line than sub-postmasters.
The second day was a lot of worrying about what she did when she finally figured out what was going on, and it made ignorance seem like bliss.
Over the course of more than six hours of interrogation, a picture emerged of an obsession with distortions, public relations, media management and the reputation of the Post Office being placed above concern for subpostmasters.
Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells arrives for her second day giving evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry. Photo: PA
It was most clearly set out in correspondence between Ms Vennells and the Post Office’s then director of communications, Mark Davies.
This was his suggestion in 2013 that the Postal Service conduct a review of all cases of false accounting over the past five to 10 years.
That plan was never carried out, and investigating attorney Jason Beer asked if it amounted to “a wasted decade until miscarriages of justice were discovered?”
“It very well could have happened,” she agreed. “It very well could have happened.”
Jason Beer KC, Post Office Horizon IT Scandal Investigation Consultant
This raised the question why this didn’t happen, and part of the answer came in an email from Mr Davies setting out his views.
“If we say publicly that we’re going to look at the latest cases… whether from recent history or from earlier times, we’re going to bring that up in a very significant way on the front page news. In terms of the media, that’s going to become very popular, very high profile,” he wrote. .
“To what extent did Mr Davies’ advice here affect your decision-making?” she was asked.
“I would never do that – it just wasn’t how I worked,” she said.
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Beer then responded to Mr Davies: “You were right to report this. And I will accept your bull, no problem,” she wrote.
“There are two main objectives, the most urgent is to manage the media, the second is to ensure we address JA’s concerns [James Arbuthnot] and Alan Bates.”
See more information:
Former chief executive ‘agreed with PR consultant’
Key questions the former Postal Service boss must answer
‘I have no sympathy for her,’ says Bates
“You took the PR’s advice, didn’t you?” asked Mr. Beer.
Her response, which she did not actually remember, was drowned out by groans of derision from the subpostmasters present in the room, prompting President Sir Wyn Williams to call for order.
Failure to remember is a consistent theme in Vennells’ evidence, perhaps culminating in this, when asked about a board meeting in 2013: “My recollection,” she said, “is that I don’t remember.”
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