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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)
Following a short break the inquiry resumes with Jason Beer KC going over notes from a Post Office board meeting in 2012, where allegations of issues with Horizon were raised and dismissed by the firm's top lawyer at the time Susan Crichton. Jason Beer KC has turned to examining Vennells' professional background and knowledge of how the Post Office operated.
The meeting record notes board members were told the firm had won every criminal prosecution using evidence "based on the Horizon system's integrity", as well as receiving positive reports about it from auditors. The lead counsel to the inquiry asks if it is correct she had no previous experience of managing both a large IT team and an organisation which prosecuted its own staff - Vennells says this is correct.
Vennells says this is what most people in the Post Office thought was case at the time, but goes on to admit "clearly that was completely and totally inaccurate". The barrister then moves on to discussing several references to the importance of protecting public money, asking if Vennells was preoccupied with this concept?
Beer concludes the line of questioning by asking how she thinks false information was given to her. The former Post Office CEO says she was not preoccupied with, but adds that when she joined the Royal Mail in 2007 she was surprised about how much attention was paid to a document called "managing public money".
Vennells replies that it important to note she didn't believe the information was false, adding that it is unlikely other board members thought so too. "Of course it's because it was important, because all public organisations are funded through public money," Vennells tells Beer.
"If you're given information by the highest lawyer in the organisation, you take it completely as the truth."
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