No desire to point fingers over Horizon scandal
Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells has told the final day of the Horizon IT scandal inquiry that her senior team failed to inform her of key information but said it was “no intention of her to point fingers”.
In closing arguments, Vinnells’ attorneys named former colleagues, including Angela Vanden Bergder, who she claims failed to tell her relevant facts related to the scandal.
Deputy postmasters attending the inquiry expressed displeasure at Ms Vennells’ comments and laughed when the former Anglican priest said she did not want to blame others.
More than 900 deputy postmasters have been charged after a breach in Horizon’s IT system left their accounts short of funds.
Ms Vennells’ lawyer Samantha Leek KC told the inquest her client “could not and would not seek to conceal the fact that during her tenure as chief executive she failed to disclose the extent of the flaws, errors and deficiencies in Horizon” The truth”.
But “she simply did not receive the information she should have been provided to her by the senior team she trusted and delegated responsible roles for”.
“Ms Vinnells does not know why key information was not passed on to her,” she added.
Ms Vennells served as chief executive of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019. She previously served as the organization’s Network Director for five years.
Her statement was one of the last heard in the long-running investigation into the Horizon scandal, which launched in September 2020.
It heard from 298 witnesses, received 780 witness statements and processed more than 2.2 million pages of disclosures.
