Tearful Vennells declares ‘love’ for Post Office and denies ‘deception’
PAULA Vennells sobbed as she declared her “love” for the Post Office during a fierce grilling at the Horizon IT Inquiry.
The 65-year-old has appeared visibly emotional on all three days as she gave evidence to the probe and was forced to compose herself after she was accused of being someone who “couldn’t be bothered” to find a problem that would devastate the Post Office.
During a tearful episode at Aldwych House in central London, Ms Vennells admitted she had let subpostmasters down, but claimed her “only motivation was for the best for the Post Office and for the hundreds of postmasters that I met”.
She denied leading the Post Office through “deception” and “manipulation”, as she told the inquiry: “I was trying to address a culture in the organisation which I had found to be command and control, where people couldn’t speak their minds and they couldn’t speak up.
“I was trying to encourage people to work in that way. I did not deal in deception.”
Ms Vennells also claimed she was “noted” within the Post Office for “caring about subpostmasters”, adding: “One of my huge regrets in this is that I did not do that for the subpostmasters affected in this way, and that will be with me.”
Under questioning from Sam Stein KC, on behalf of a number of subpostmasters, she said she “believed” she was asking the right questions about the Horizon system but accepted she “may not have”, as she was not an IT expert.
Mr Stein said: “Ms Vennells, you’re not stupid. You studied French, Russian, business as a degree. You then worked for wellknown companies in the UK...
“You rose through the ranks of the Post Office to become its CEO. You were pushing forward under network transformation. You’ve been quoted as saying that you want and you see a future of the Post Office opening up more branches, 30,000 branches, in the future.
“That was you, Ms Vennells, at the time. A vision you were expressing to everyone that asked about what you could see for the future. And yet here all of these facts were adding up to there being a real problem, a really difficult problem, to chew over, right the way through 2013.
“And you failed, didn’t you? You failed to get into this. On your account, you failed to ask the right questions. You couldn’t be bothered, could you, Ms Vennells? The risk was too great. Looking under that rock, you’re going to find a problem. It’s going to devastate the Post Office. Ruin it. And you couldn’t let that happen, could you, Ms Vennells?”
The former chief executive said: “I loved the Post Office,” after which she grew emotional and paused to compose herself.
“I worked as hard as I possibly could to deliver the best Post Office for the UK... It would have been wonderful to have 30,000 Post Office branches. That would have been the best outcome ever.
“What I failed to do — and I have made this clear previously — is I did not recognise the imbalance of power between the institution and the individual. And I let these people down. I am very aware of that.”