Peter Ruddick
Reporting from the inquiry

After lunch, more apologies and more of the blame game.

The "expert" evidence of Fujitsu’s Gareth Jenkins was used in court to help convict sub-postmasters. The realisation that he appeared not to have properly fulfilled - or been aware of - his duties led to the so-called "Clarke Advice". It was the beginning of the end for Post Office’s role as a prosecutor.

Jenkins’ legal team described him as an "engineer in a legal world". He had been criticised without the chance to explain. He was not instructed as an expert. He is not the "ventriloquist" he has been accused of being. The Post Office knew about bugs in the Horizon system.

Finally, to close proceedings, the Post Office’s sole shareholder: the government. The lawyer working for the Department for Business and Trade admitted that the government failed to prevent the Post Office from devastating people's lives.

However, he pointed out that assurances given to ministers by civil servants did not now make for comfortable reading.

Then, with a round of applause, the inquiry has come to an end.

Nearly 300 witnesses have appeared in person. Many more have submitted written statements. There are millions of pages of documents for Sir Wyn Williams to peruse over Christmas.

His verdict, his conclusions, his recommendations still "many months" away.

Emma Simpson
Business correspondent, reporting from the inquiry

The inquiry room is packed with sub-postmasters and their families. The morning began with an apology from the Post Office for the damage it had caused.

Post Office lawyer Nicola Greaney KC told the inquiry that it would rightly be critical of a number of individuals, but invited it to bear in mind that serious governance and structural failures that permitted their actions to be unchecked.

The Post Office wasn’t perfect, she said, adding that the inquiry had been a "humbling experience".

Any core participant is entitled to make a closing statement, and next up was the legal representative for former PO boss, Paula Vennells.

In her written closing submission published yesterday, her legal teams said she had no desire to point the finger at others. But that’s exactly what her barrister did today, essentially arguing that as the boss of a large and complex organisation she was entitled to rely on what she was told, including from her head of IT and General Counsel.

"She was neither wilfully blind as suggested by core participants nor did she purposefully close her eyes," argued Samantha Leek KC.

To groans and the shaking of heads in the room, her barrister concluded by saying there was nothing to show Paula Vennells had acted in bad faith - and that she had wanted to do right by the sub-postmasters.

Emma Simpson
Business correspondent

It's the last day of the-long running Post Office inquiry.

We've heard from nearly 300 witnesses, 780 witness statements have been submitted and more than 270,000 documents dealt with, encompassing a quarter of a century of history.

We're now on to the closing statements. Yesterday we heard from the barristers for the sub-postmasters and their criticism was damning.

Edward Henry KC spoke of how there was a deliberate conspiracy, first to convict innocent people and then cover it up and the "deplorable wrongdoing went to the top".

Final submissions allow core participants to reflect and comment on the evidence heard as well as propose recommendations that the inquiry chair Sir Wynn Williams might want to consider.

Today we'll be hearing from barristers for the Post Office, Fujitsu, and the Department for Business and Trade as well as the legal representatives for former Post Office CEO, Paula Vennells and Gareth Jenkins, the former Fujitsu engineer.

Like yesterday, many victims and their families are here to watch these proceedings draw to a close and hoping that the inquiry will get to the truth when Williams delivers his findings sometime in 2025.

As a reminder, we won't be bringing you regular text updates in this page but you can follow the inquiry at the top of the page, just tap Watch live.

Image source, Getty Images

For the next two days, lawyers representing sub-postmasters and postmistresses who were wrongly prosecuted due to the faulty Horizon IT system will reflect on the evidence given to the inquiry.

The inquiry, chaired by Sir Wyn Williams, has been gathering evidence on the decisions leading up to the wrongful convictions since February 2022.

The closing statements will reflect on all phases of the inquiry, including evidence from former and current politicians, executives who were at the Post Office's highest ranks during the scandal and former sub-postmasters and postmistresses.

More than 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted for stealing because of incorrect information from the Horizon computer system. It has been called the UK's most widespread miscarriage of justice.

The Post Office itself took many cases to court, prosecuting 700 people between 1999 and 2015. Another 283 cases were brought by other bodies, including the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

You can watch the closing remarks live by pressing the Watch live button at the top of this page. We will not be bringing you regular text updates.