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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)
Sam Hancock Thank you for joining us. We've finished hearing the first day of evidence from Paula Vennells, the former Post Office CEO. She'll continue giving evidence over the next two days. Here are some key points from today:
Reporting from the inquiry Vennells began with an apology, saying she was "sorry" for "all the sub-postmasters and their families who have suffered"
Inquiry counsel Jason Beer is sticking to questions about Fujitsu's ability to remotely access Horizon accounts in Post Office branches. She admitted that evidence she gave to MPs looking into problems with the Horizon IT system in 2012 was not true
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 broke down in tears as a list of sub-postmasters and postmistresses who had been acquitted after being accused of stealing money from the Post Office was read out
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: Vennells said she was unaware the Post Office conducted its own prosecutions until 2012
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." The former chief executive also broke down again when answering questions following the death of Martin Griffiths, a former sub-postmaster who attempted to take his own life on 23 September 2013, having been accused of a shortfall amounting to £100,000 at his Cheshire branch. He died in hospital weeks later
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". You can read more about today's evidence here. We'll be back tomorrow with live updates from the inquiry.
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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