The ex-chief executive faces questioning over whether she knew about the Horizon bugs
Fact CheckFormer Post Office boss Paula Vennells, as she gives evidence to the Post Office inquiry at Aldwych House, central London The ex-chief executive faces three days of questioning over whether she covered up the Post Office’s knowledge of the faulty accounting software, and whether she deliberately misled MPs.
She said: “I was given much information and as the inquiry has heard there was information that I wasn’t given and others didn’t receive as well. She said: “I have been disappointed where I think I have learnt that people knew more than perhaps, either they remembered at the time or knew of at the time.
As she answered, she appeared to tear up: “I fully accept now that Post Office knew…I’m incredibly sorry that that happened to those people and to so many others.”Ms Vennells said that she did not know that the Post Office brought its own prosecutions until 2012, by which timeThe Post Office took many cases to court, with 700 people prosecuted between 1999 and 2015. The Post Office had a team of 100 people that were investigating “up and down the country”, Jason Beer KC told Ms Vennells.
“My only explanation is that it had been going on for so long that it was an accepted reality; it was a status quo that I joined and accepted. I shouldn’t have done.”
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