Former Post Office Boss Hands Back CBE and Says ‘Sorry’ to Horizon Scandal Sub-Postmasters

A sign outside a Post Office in England on Nov. 3, 2009. Lewis Stickley/PA

The former chief executive of the Post Office, Paula Vennells, has agreed to return her CBE, adding she is “truly sorry for the devastation” caused by the Horizon scandal.

Around 700 postmasters and sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of fraud because of an error in the Horizon accounting software made by the Japanese firm Fujitsu.

But in Jan. 2019, Ms. Vennells was given a CBE for “services to the Post Office and to charity,” 11 months before a High Court judge threw out the convictions of a number of sub-postmasters and accused the Post Office of “institutional obstinacy.”

Ms. Vennells’s move comes after the prime minister’s official spokesman said Rishi Sunak would “strongly support” the Honours Forfeiture Committee if it decided to consider removing her CBE.

Post office minister Kevin Hollinrake told MPs on Monday the government was actively looking into ways in which the sub-postmasters’ convictions could be quickly overturned, including passing emergency legislation.

In Sep. 2023 Mr. Hollinrake said those who had been wrongfully convicted would be offered £600,000 each.

The government has been spurred into action after a television drama about the scandal was watched by millions.

On Tuesday, Ms. Vennells made a statement in which she said she had maintained her silence up until now as she had considered it inappropriate to comment publicly before she gave evidence at the ongoing public inquiry.

But she added: “I am, however, aware of the calls from subpostmasters and others to return my CBE. I have listened and I confirm that I return my CBE with immediate effect.”

‘Lives Torn Apart’

Ms. Vennells said: “I am truly sorry for the devastation caused to the sub-postmasters and their families, whose lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted as a result of the Horizon system.”

She said she would be focusing on assisting the public inquiry and did not plan to make any further comment until it was over.

Earlier the work and pensions secretary, Mel Stride, said Fujitsu will “quite possibly” have to pay compensation if an ongoing public inquiry into the Post Office scandal blames them and their handling of the software at the heart of the case.

Mr. Stride told LBC Radio “it won’t necessarily just be the taxpayer” who is “on the hook for this money.”

Protesters outside the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry at the International Dispute Resolution Centre in London, on Dec. 8, 2022. PA

Michael Rudkin, who was one of those featured in the ITV drama, lived in the constituency of Andrew Bridgen, the independent MP for North West Leicestershire.

Mr. Bridgen told The Epoch Times: “We need a serious investigation, and we need those at the top of Fujitsu, the Post Office and government who were aware of the situation to be held responsible and accountable. I would fully support any drive by the government to involve Fujitsu in the compensation process for the sub-postmasters like Mr. Rudkin.”

“Compensation would be a step in the right direction but it’s a step on a long road to getting to the end of this national scandal,” added Mr. Bridgen, who was expelled from the Conservative Party last year because of his views on the COVID-19 vaccine.

He said: “I have been working on this since my election to Parliament in 2010. But it has taken an ITV dramatisation of the situation for the government to take this scandal seriously. The sub-postmasters deserve more than compensation, they deserve answers from those who brushed this under the carpet.”

Mr. Stride said: “We’ve got this public inquiry underway. One of the things it’s going to look at … is where does culpability lie? Who is responsible, who knew what when, who did things they shouldn’t have done and so on?

“To the extent that that culpability rests upon the shoulders of others than government, then I think you can expect ministers to come to the appropriate conclusions. And perhaps it won’t be just the taxpayer that is on the hook for those costs,” he said, in a veiled reference to Fujitsu, whose UK headquarters is in Bracknell, Berkshire.

Mr. Stride said the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has “big questions” to answer on his role in the Horizon scandal as he was postal affairs minister between 2010 and 2012.

But he ruled out banning Fujitsu from bidding for government IT contracts.

‘Very Serious Consequences’

Mr. Stride said: “My view is that we need to wait to see what the inquiry decides in terms of culpability. Now in the event that it determines that Fujitsu made a number of knowing mistakes and caused all sorts of problems that wouldn’t have otherwise have occurred, then that would strike me as being quite a serious situation and I would expect some very serious consequences.”

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, said the Post Office should be stripped of its power to prosecute individuals.

On Tuesday, the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, is holding talks with senior judges about how to expedite the quashing of convictions of postmasters and sub-postmasters caught up in the Horizon scandal.

Mr. Stride denied the government had been “asleep at the wheel” over the Horizon scandal and pointed out £138 million in compensation had already been paid out and a public inquiry had been set up in 2020, which was converted to a statutory inquiry in 2021.

The inquiry is due to resume on Thursday, with Post Office investigator Stephen Bradshaw due to give evidence.

Gwyneth Hughes, who wrote the ITV drama “Mr Bates vs The Post Office,” said she was “completely astounded” by the public and political response to the programme.

She told The Guardian: “We don’t know who in the Post Office were the individual bad guys but what we do know is that as a result of groupthink and confirmation bias, the institution as a whole is guilty of appalling cruelty and lying.”