![Paula Vennells reaches for the tissues in her emotional testimony at the Post Office inquiry which did not impress victims](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/05/22/TELEMMGLPICT000378927992_17164047818950_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqgRl8BouVbC6HZnydG5Kn5nsfeSOfVgTn-8k03fw9U_s.jpeg?imwidth=680)
![Paula Vennells reaches for the tissues in her emotional testimony at the Post Office inquiry which did not impress victims](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/05/22/TELEMMGLPICT000378927992_17164047818950_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqgRl8BouVbC6HZnydG5Kn5nsfeSOfVgTn-8k03fw9U_s.jpeg?imwidth=680)
The moment they had been waiting for. After decades of misery, sub-postmasters from across the land descended on London to face down the elusive Paula Vennells, the woman they blame for ruining their lives
Having gone to ground after becoming “the most hated woman in Britain” over her role in the Horizon IT scandal, the former chief executive of the Post Office was finally being dragged into the limelight for her first public appearance since 2015.
But if Alan Bates and his fellow campaigners had been hoping to see fireworks from a pantomime villain, what they got instead was a dull, rather unimpressive figure in grey.
![tmg.video.placeholder.alt JZrExxP6WJw](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JZrExxP6WJw/mqdefault.jpg)
Ms Vennells, well-spoken and accentless, tried to wrap herself in a cloak of management-speak as she gave evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, saying she had “misremembered” some important details and that the answer to other questions was “yes and no”.
For more than an hour, she remained inscrutable as Jason Beer KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, tried to get to the truth of who knew what when.
In the end, though, her self-control deserted her as the inquiry turned to its darkest subject: the suicide of sub-postmasters wrongly accused of theft.
Under questioning about her reaction to the suicide of Martin Griffiths, who stepped in front of a bus after being blamed for £100,000 of shortfalls at his branch, Ms Vennells stopped mid-sentence, gulped and reached for a tissue as tears formed in her eyes.
It was one of three occasions during the morning session that Ms Vennells choked on her words as the human cost of the Horizon disaster was weighed.
If she had hoped for sympathy, none was forthcoming. Sub-postmasters who had shed far more tears than this over the years sat with their arms crossed, apparently unmoved.
The most tangible response to Ms Vennells from the 130-strong audience in the public gallery during her first day of evidence was not hatred, or anger, but mockery. Snorts of laughter greeted her claims at one point that she was criticised by colleagues for being “too curious”.
This was, after all, a woman who also told the inquiry that she spent years unaware that the Post Office was investigating and prosecuting its employees.
An ordained priest, Ms Vennells took an oath on the Bible to tell the truth to the inquiry, and as she was sworn in at the start of the day it was hard to differentiate this from a trial. The most noticeable difference between this and a courtroom was the sheer scale of the setting – closer to the size of a small regional theatre than any judicial premises.
Ms Vennells had to walk past a public gallery filled with victims and their families before taking her seat in the witness box of the fifth-floor inquiry room. Their dignity as they sat in silence was impressive.
![Police and photographers surround Ms Vennells as she makes her way into the inquiry](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/05/22/TELEMMGLPICT000378819086_17164062000160_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwSX5rhseiWKOo9p9OQ-ymek.jpeg?imwidth=350)
It was also in sharp contrast to the equivalent of a perp walk she had endured as she entered the building, when she needed police protection to get past the jeers of campaigners, flashing cameras and journalists shouting: “Are you a liar, Ms Vennells?”
She had tried to take the sting out of the emotionally charged occasion by beginning the day with an apology: she said she was “very, very sorry” for what had happened, but her somewhat childish phrase was described as a “PR apology” by Mark Kelly, a former sub-postmaster from Swansea.
After all, he said, “Why did she have to wait until today to do that?”
Paula Vennells’s tears don’t wash with postmasters whose lives were ruined
Former Post Office chief executive gives emotional testimony but it rings hollow for victims of Horizon scandal