Paula Vennells, the former chief executive of the Post Office, begins three days of questioning at the inquiry this morning. She is among the most high-profile faces of the scandal, in which hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters were wrongfully convicted.
Let's outline the Post Office scandal - also known as the Horizon scandal.
Sub-postmasters and mistresses - the staff in charge of branches - soon began noticing shortfalls in company accounts and complained the system was faulty. This paved the way for the victims' convictions to be reconsidered via the Criminal Cases Review Commission. But as well as the slow speed of payments, there has been outrage people have had to pay tax on them, while Post Office bosses have been given £1.6m in bonuses.A former Post Office executive has said she was forced to block Paula Vennells' phone number after the former chief executive called multiple times asking for help to avoid the independent inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal.
During her tenure, she oversaw huge financial struggles, which forced the closure of thousands of branches nationwide and the service to modernise. It commissioned the private investigation company Second Sight to file a report, which ultimately concluded there were no widespread accounting or IT issues.As it progressed, Ms Vennells faced increasing criticism, and she eventually stepped down from her role in 2019.
She also stepped aside from non-executive leadership roles at Morrisons and Dunelm, according to reports.
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