Post Office Paula Vennells broke down in tears on several occasions as she gave evidence on Wednesday to an inquiry into one of the country’sVennells, who earlier this year gave back her Commander of the Order of the British Empire title that she received in 2019, admitted that she had “made mistakes” but denied there was a conspiracy to cover up the scandal.
After the Post Office introduced the Horizon information technology system 25 years ago to automate sales accounting, local managers began finding unexplained losses that bosses said they were responsible for covering. Between 2000 and 2014, more than 900 postal employees were wrongly convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting, with some imprisoned and others forced into bankruptcy.
Vennells, who insisted she was unaware of bugs in the Horizon system, is due to testify for three days."When she was grilled about postmaster Martin Griffiths, who deliberately stepped in front of an oncoming bus in September 2013 and died weeks later, after he had been falsely accused of taking thousands of pounds from his branch, she broke down.