Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells has admitted altering the legal document Royal Mail issued to potential investors before it became public property to remove mention of the flawed Horizon IT system.
Data from accounting software created by Fujitsu was used to prosecute more than 700 sub-postmasters for theft and false accounting.
Many more victims lost their homes, livelihoods and good reputation to compensate for non-existent needs.
‘Last minute changes’ to Royal Mail prospectus removing Horizon reference
Now the inquiry set up to establish a clear account of Horizon’s introduction and failure has heard, during the third and final day of Mrs Vennells’ questioning, that she removed “at the last minute” the reference to Horizon from the Royal Mail prospectus issued before to be listed on the London Stock Exchange.
A prospectus is a legal and financial document that details important information for potential business investors.
It was the first time the issue had been raised with Mrs Vennells.
She said: “It was pointed out to me that in the IT section of the Royal Mail prospectus there was reference to – I can’t remember the words now – but risks relating to the Horizon IT system… the line that was put in said no problem systemic was found in the Horizon system.”
Ms Vennells wanted the reference removed because “the Horizon system no longer had anything to do with the Royal Mail group”, she said, and contacted the company secretary to have the reference removed.
‘I earned my keep’ in the Post Office division and Royal Mail listing
Based on this action, Mrs Vennells wrote to a colleague: “I’ve made my living on this”.
If Horizon’s bugs had been known at the time, Ms Vennells agreed that Royal Mail could not have gone private.
“Royal Mail’s unfair processes would have prevented the floating [on the London Stock Exchange] I’m sure that would have been the case,” she said.
The Post Office and Royal Mail were one organization before they were separated in 2012, so some Horizon processes were carried out by Royal Mail.
Earning your CBE?
The lawyer who questioned her suggested that it was her good work with the break-up of Royal Mail and the Post Office’s return to profitability that earned her a CBE (Commander of the British Empire).
Mrs. returned your EFC before it was eventually removed.
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She was in charge of Correios for 12 years and served as executive president for seven of them, from 2012 to 2019.
In sometimes emotional testimony, Mrs Vennells said she “loved the Post Office” and worked “as hard as I could to deliver the best Post Office to the UK”.
Accepting responsibility?
When asked if she was responsible for her own fall, she detailed that she hasn’t worked since 2019.
“I lost every job I had. And since then I’ve only worked on this investigation. It was very important for me to do what I didn’t do or couldn’t do when I was CEO and I worked for the last three years and I prioritized this above all else. “, she said.
“Last year it was probably a full-time job and that’s my commitment. I avoided talking to the press, perhaps to my own detriment, because all along I put this first.”
A pile of details
Denying a lawyer’s accusation that she gave a “cowardly and self-serving report”, Ms Vennells said as CEO: “You are not responsible for everything that happens… You have to rely on the advice of internal experts and external.”
Details of Horizon’s numerous failures of which Ms Vennells was aware were presented to the inquest by the victims’ lawyer, Sam Stein KC (King’s lawyer).
“This was a whole collection of facts that shook Horizon’s belief, that were a direct attack on the basic system that supported the Postal Service, all of them coming one after the other,” he said.
“Bang, bang, bang! Attacking the Horizon system. In late 2013, you could have been in no doubt, Ms. Vennells, that the Horizon system needed investigation, needed investigation, needed an in-depth investigation and review.”
Trust
Ms Vennells’ regular refrain throughout the days of hearings was that she trusted the people she worked with, didn’t take details from them and didn’t have the technical knowledge to deal with the minutiae of IT.
She said she was perhaps “too confident.”
On Friday, she was asked about the specific names of the people in whom she placed this trust and listed former Post Office executives.
“You distance yourself over and over again. You blame these other mysterious people for not telling you the truth,” Stein said.
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