Vennells failed to share 16 cases that weakened Horizon defence

PAULA VENNELLS blamed Post Office shortfalls on the “temptation” of subpostmasters and not the Horizon software, the inquiry heard from witnesses.

In a damning day of evidence, the former Post Office chief executive was also accused of failing to disclose at least 16 cases that appeared to undermine the reliability of Horizon software at least two years before the company stopped prosecuting sub-postmasters in 2015.

Lord Arbuthnot, the Tory peer, and Sir Anthony Hooper, the retired High Court Judge, were the latest witnesses to address the public inquiry into the scandal of more than 900 sub-postmasters being wrongfully prosecuted for shortfalls that did not exist.

Lord Arbuthnot, who began campaigning for Horizon victims in 2009, yesterday told the hearing he attended a meeting with Post Office executives and several other MPS to discuss concerns about the Fujitsu software.

Notes on the 2012 June meeting, drafted by Janet Walker, his then chief of staff, described how Alice Perkins, the Post Office chair had said the organisation and its staff were stewards of “large quantities of cash”.

The notes on her input added: “There is the issue of trying not to put temptation in people’s way, but in any retail business this is not possible.”

The document then went on to state that Ms Vennells “said that temptation is an issue, but that trust in the Post Office as a brand is absolutely paramount”.

The minutes of the meeting showed Ms Vennells claimed some sub-postmasters had been “borrowing” money from the tills.

They read: “It appears that some subpostmasters have been borrowing money from the Post Office account/till in the same way they might do in a retail business, but this is not how the Post Office works.

“Post Office cash is public money and the Post Office must recover it if any goes missing.”

Speaking from the witness stand at the inquiry, Lord Arbuthnot said: “At the meeting of May 17 with Oliver Letwin and me, Alice Perkins and Paula Vennells both raised the problem of there being lots and lots of cash lying around in unexpected places.

“Whether this meant that they thought that that led sub-postmasters into temptation and being inherently dishonest wasn’t entirely clear, but that was the issue they were raising I think.

“We never got to the bottom of that, but that’s what she was talking about.”

Jason Beer KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, then asked: “Did you or would you take from what is recorded as being said there that the issue, according to Ms Vennells, was with postmasters putting their hands in the till, rather than with Horizon?”

The former Tory MP replied: “Well it’s clearly possible that that might have happened in some cases, but if you don’t have a robust, to use the word, Horizon accounting system, you can’t be sure whether it has happened.

“So, I thought it might have happened in some cases, but to say that it happened in a lot of cases struck me as needing to be examined and tested.”

Mr Beer continued: “Would you agree overall that this is a fair summary: the problem is that a small number of postmasters borrow money from the till, the problem is not Horizon, every prosecution involving Horizon has found in favour of the Post Office, and not a single case existed whereon investigation the Horizon system was found to be at fault?”

Lord Arbuthnot replied: “Yes.”

In the same June 12 meeting, the Ms Vennells also reportedly described

Horizon as “very secure” and that “every case taken to prosecution that involves the Horizon system” had been found in favour of the Post Office.

Later, Mr Beer listed 16 examples of cases that undermined this argument, including identified bugs and sub-postmasters who had been acquitted by juries, and asked Lord Arbuthnot about each example.

He responded to each cited case with variations of “No, they didn’t [mention it]”.

Separately, Sir Anthony, who in 2013 was appointed chairman of a Post Office group that reviewed cases of sub-postmasters who believed they had been wrongfully convicted, told the inquiry that he had told Ms Vennells “again and again” that the Post Office’s case “didn’t make sense”.

‘Ms Vennells raised the problem of there being lots of cash lying around in unexpected places’’