More than a year before the company dropped its prosecution, Paula Vennells described the potential wrongful convictions of subpostmasters as “very worrying” in an email that appeared a day before she gave evidence to the Horizon IT inquiry.
ITV News reported that an October 2013 email, as well as a recording of a telephone conversation with Ms Vennells, who was the Postmaster General, confirmed that the cases of eight postmasters had been sent to her.
In her exchange with Second Sight forensic accountant Ron Warmington, who were called in to conduct an independent review of the Horizon system, Ms Vennells said: “I have just read the attachments.
“In addition to finding them very disturbing (I advise anyone not to), I am now even better informed.
“The form you have come up with is very helpful because it removes some of the emotion and highlights very clearly the areas we need to address as well as investigate the mediation process which I hope will bring closure for some of these people.
“Like I said… I take this very seriously…”
I hope Ms Vennells finally comes clean so the public can get to the bottom of this and those who suffered get the justice they need
Nadhim Zahawi
Ms Vennells, who was chief executive from 2012 to 2019, told MPs in February 2015, just over a year after the email was sent, that there was nothing wrong with the Horizon system and that she had seen no evidence of miscarriages of justice.
ITV News reported that former trade and commerce select committee member Nadhim Zahawi believed the email “will be seen as the smoking gun that is the cover-up that happened at the Post Office”.
The Tory MP told the television station: “I hope that Ms Vennells will finally come clean so that the public can get to the bottom of this and those who suffered can get the justice they need.”
Ms Vennells will be questioned under oath on Wednesday about her role in the Horizon scandal, which unfolded under her watch.
The 65-year-old has been accused of a cover-up by sub-postmasters, with campaigner and former sub-postmaster Jo Hamilton urging her to tell the truth.
More than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted and convicted of a crime between 1999 and 2015 because Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon IT system caused money to go missing from their branches.
The prosecution continued under Ms Vennells’ watch despite former judge Sir Anthony Hooper, chairman of the mediation scheme for people who believed they had been wrongly prosecuted by post, repeatedly telling her “it doesn’t make sense”.
The former chief executive has yet to comment in detail about her role in the scandal, but has previously apologized for the “devastation caused to sub-postmasters and their families”.
A document submitted by her lawyers ahead of a preliminary hearing in 2021 said she was “deeply concerned” by the judgments in the cases against lead campaigner Alan Bates and Miss Hamilton, in which Horizon was found to be at fault.
In 2019, she was in the New Year’s Honors List for a CBE “for services to the Post Office and to Charity”, but voluntarily handed the honor back after a petition attracted more than 1.2 million signatures.
In a brief statement issued earlier, Ms Vennells said she would “continue to support and focus on co-operation with the investigation”.
Ms Vennells could be tested on her knowledge of the Horizon remote access capability, the alleged false evidence given by expert witnesses during the Post Office prosecution and the conduct of the company’s investigators.
She may also be asked whether she believed there had been any miscarriages of justice during her tenure, after chief financial officer Alisdair Cameron told an inquest there was not and she “couldn’t get there emotionally”.
The Post Office came under fire after a screening of ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which put the Horizon IT scandal under the spotlight.
Hundreds of sub-postmasters are still waiting for full compensation, despite the Government announcing that those whose convictions have been overturned are entitled to £600,000 in payouts.