IT scandal could cost Post Office boss CBE
Former chief executive’s honour in question after faulty systems resulted in wrongful fraud convictions
THE Post Office executive who oversaw the IT scandal that led to hundreds of sub-postmasters being wrongly jailed could lose her CBE, the civil servant in charge of reviewing honours has said.
Sir Tom Scholar, the chairman of the Honours Forfeiture Committee, said his team would look at whether to remove Paula Vennells’s CBE after the conclusion of a government inquiry into the scandal later this year.
The former chief executive of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019 was awarded the CBE “for services to the Post Office and to charity” in the year she stood down from the organisation.
However, it has since emerged hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting because of problems with the Post Office’s computer system, in what was dubbed the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history.
More than 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting from 2000 to 2014 over faulty information from the Horizon IT system, which found incorrect accounting glitches. Reports of the problems were not investigated during Ms Vennells’s tenure.
The Government has opened a fund worth almost £700million to pay for compensation. A public inquiry into the scandal started two months ago.
Sir Tom was responding to Labour MP Kevan Jones, who has written to the committee repeatedly in the last three years asking for Ms Vennells’s honour to be reviewed. In his letter, dated April 20, Sir Tom said his committee “is only able to reflect official findings by those bodies which do have that power”.
He added: “As you know, there is currently an official government inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT issue and the inquiry is planning to submit its findings in autumn 2022.”
Sir Tom said the committee will have the information needed for an assessment once the inquiry has concluded, adding the committee can “consider cases where individuals are deemed to have brought the honours system into disrepute”. This would include receiving a prison sentence of more than three months, or being censured by a relevant body for actions that are directly relevant to the honour.
Mr Jones told The Daily Telegraph: “It is good to finally receive a response from the Honours Forfeiture Committee. Victims of this scandal will rightly not be able to understand why Paula Vennells retains this honour.”
A Government spokesman said: “We cannot comment on whether or not specific cases are being considered by the committee.”
Sources said the Honours Forfeiture Committee would not usually consider any case while there were ongoing legal proceedings or inquiries.
A Post Office spokesman said: “The Post Office has no comment to make regarding Sir Tom Scholar’s remarks and takes no view on what the Honours Forfeiture Committee should do.”
In April last year, when the Court of appeal overturned the convictions of 39 former Post Office staff, Ms Vennells quit as a non-executive director of Morrisons and of Dunelm, and stopped her duties as an ordained Church of England minister.
Ms Vennells could not be reached for comment by The Telegraph, but last year said: “I am truly sorry for the suffering caused to the 39 sub-postmasters.”