Vennells 'grossly understated' Horizon scandal, says former Royal Mail boss

Former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells and top team "grossly understated" Horizon scandal, former Royal Mail boss Moya Greene has said.

The former head of Royal Mail has said she believes that Vennells knew that the prosecution of branch operators was wrong, adding that executives “grossly understated the gravity of the situation” as the Horizon IT scandal unfolded.

Greene, who headed Royal Mail from 2010 to 2018, was Vennells’ boss until the Post Office was split off from Royal Mail Group in 2012.

In a series of text messages between the two over the past few years, shown at the public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal on Friday (19), Greene was at first supportive of Vennells. However, by the final communication, she told Vennells that she believed she was part of the cover-up of wrongful prosecutions.

Speaking at the inquiry, Greene said, “I think she knew on the basis of the evidence that has emerged at this inquiry that there were faults in the system.

“What changed my mind is the evidence that has come out of this inquiry. I do see it in a different light because I do think we were misled. I think it grossly understated the gravity of the situation [which] had calamitous results for people.

“I think Post Office executives including [Paula] Vennells continued to slavishly, in my opinion, adhere to the position that was not tenable on the basis of the evidence presented here … It was a mischaracterisation that was so great as to be incomprehensible.”

Greene told the inquiry how her perception of the Horizon issue first began to change when Lord Arbuthnot, who championed the cause of the post office operators, wrote her a letter in 2011 stating that he was aware of 34 operators who had wrongly been accused of fraud due to faults in the software system.

She said, “What we were being told at the audit committee was there was no problem with the system. We were also told it was just a handful, a few, people blaming the system. [But] this was a significant number of people."

Greene said that, after receiving Arbuthnot’s letter, she suggested a root and branch review of the Horizon IT system but Vennells rejected the idea, saying there is no need for and that Horizon is well-tested.

Greene told the inquiry, “She didn’t think we needed the sort of independent review I was suggesting,” said Greene. “I was somehow given reassurance that it had been tested, it had been reviewed. I did ask questions, but we were brushed aside.

She added, "If I knew then what I know now I would certainly not have managed this horrible – this grotesque, as you put it – in the way this was managed. My view is when you find out that something has been done in gross error like this you put your hand up and try to set it right as fast as you can.”