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Post Office inquiry live: Ex-boss Paula Vennells cries and admits evidence to MPs wasn't true - BBC News Post Office inquiry live: Ex-boss Paula Vennells cries and admits evidence to MPs wasn't true - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
The inquiry returns from a brief break to look at a briefing document compiled for the Post Office board by consulting firm Deloittle looking into the Horizon Sam Hancock
Jason Beer KC highlights section of the report which explicitly states their work on behalf of the Post Office should not be considered a full audit, as they had not tested Horizon themselves. Reporting from the inquiry
He also brings up the "limitations" under which Deloitte produced the report, which stresses the firm had "not validated" whether Horizon worked as described in Post Office documents give to them. Inquiry counsel Jason Beer is sticking to questions about Fujitsu's ability to remotely access Horizon accounts in Post Office branches.
Vennells agrees to the barristers assertion this was a "significant limitation" to the briefing. In one exchange, Beer brings up an email from 2015 - it was sent by Paula Vennells, to ex-Post Office head of IT Lesley Sewell and ex-group communications and corporate affairs director Mark R Davies, before her well-documented appearance before the business select committee.
She says that evidence showed "fix upon fix had been applied" to Horizon and "documentation had not been kept", so Deolitte discovered it was going to be difficult to find the paperwork that confirmed it. Vennells pre-empts in the email that MPs will likely ask her if it's possible to remotely access Horizon data and askes her colleagues:
What is the true answer? I hope it is that we know this is not possible and that we are able to explain why that is. I need to say no it is not possible and that we are sure of this because of xxx and that we know this because we have had the system assured."
Vennells says she was once advised that in order to get to the truth it's better to tell someone "what it is you want to say very clearly and then ask for the information that backs that up".
Beer suggests that's an "odd way to go about things", which prompts laughter around the room. I hear one person say "unbelievable" to the person next to them.
Vennells keeps a straight face and says this was part of a "genuine attempt to be able to reassure" MPs, and that she believed it to be true that systems couldn't be accessed remotely. Other faces in the room are not as straight.
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