UK's ex-Post Office boss Paula Vennells says she was 'too trusting'
World
UK's ex-Post Office boss Paula Vennells says she was 'too trusting'
LONDON (Reuters) - Former British Post Office boss Paula Vennells sobbed on Wednesday after telling a public inquiry the wrongful conviction of hundreds of postmasters had been caused by errors not conspiracy, and if anything she had been "too trusting" of others.
More than 700 local post office branch managers, who were often at the heart of small communities, were convicted between 1999 and 2015 after a faulty IT system called Horizon from Japan's Fujitsu (6702.T), opens new tab led to shortfalls in their accounts.
The state-owned Post Office prosecuted them under special powers, despite evidence that it knew of the IT problems.
Some were jailed, others bankrupted and many saw marriages and reputations destroyed in one of Britain's biggest miscarriages of justice. Some died before being cleared.
Vennells, a 65-year-old ordained priest who led the Post Office from 2012 to 2019, opened three days of testimony on Wednesday with an apology.
"I am very, very sorry," she said, in her first public comments in nearly a decade.
She was asked how it was possible that she had not known about the IT problems and about a cover-up that allowed prosecutions to continue while concern grew.
"There was information I wasn't given," she said. "One of my reflections on all this is that I was too trusting. I did probe and I did ask questions."
Public outrage about the scandal erupted at the turn of the year when the ITV channel dramatised the postmasters' campaign for justice in "Mr Bates vs the Post Office".
