Cachella Smith
Reporting from the Post Office inquiry

Thank you for staying with our coverage of the Post Office inquiry.

Throughout the day, we've been reporting on evidence from former Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson and ex-Royal Mail chief executive Dame Moya Greene.

Here's are some key moments:

• Ex-postal affairs minister Jo Swinson criticised Paula Vennells throughout her evidence. She said she believed Vennells' assurances about the Horizon IT system and suggested Vennells knew about the unsafe Fujitsu witness and didn't tell her. She was later questioned on that by Vennells' lawyer
• Like Ed Davey and Pat McFadden yesterday, Swinson referenced the role of civil servants and the trust that ministers place in them
• Towards the end of her evidence, Swinson became emotional. She told the inquiry she asked a lot of questions, but that it "wasn't enough"
• Dame Moya Greene gave her evidence next. She explained she wasn't aware of remote access issues in 2011 and 2012

• Towards the end of the day, the inquiry was shown private messaged between Greene and Vennells. In one message, Greene said "I think you knew" in relation to faults

• The former chief executive of Royal Mail told the inquiry "I do think we were misled"

Dame Moya Greene, former chief executive of Royal Mail, has just finished providing evidence to the inquiry.

Stay with us as we wrap up the day.

The inquiry has just been shown messages between Dame Moya Greene and former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells.

In one message, in May 2022, Greene said to Vennells that Horizon was the "villain here" and "I know you are a good person".

A later message is brought up between the pair and seems to indicate a change.

Greene writes to Vennells saying "I think you knew".

Greene explains to the inquiry she thought this on the basis of evidence that emerged through the inquiry - that there were faults in the system.

"I do think that we were misled", she says.

"I think that it was grossly understated, the gravity of the situation, and it has had calamitous results for people" Greene adds.

A letter is brought up from Lord Arbuthnot to Greene dated 15 December 2011.

In it, he says he's concerned on a number of fronts. Arbuthnot says he’s aware of “34 individual employees throughout the country who feel they have been wrongly accused of fraud due to faults in this particular system”.

She remembers receiving a letter “around this time” and that it “registered” with her - as it was “different from the way in which the issue had been described in our audit and risk committee”.

Green is asked about the “34” complaints in that email and whether that was a number that triggered her.

“It did, yeah” she responds.

Now, she's asked whether she was concerned that there may possibly be an issue with the prosecutions that the Post Office had pursued at this point.

“I didn’t know about that,” she says.

“I was concerned that there was something wrong with the system and that the fault in the system was causing people to be falsely charged, and horribly falsely convicted”, she adds.

Cachella Smith
Reporting from the Post Office inquiry

The inquiry just took a short pause for tech issues.

It looks like things are back up and running again now.

Cachella Smith
Reporting from the Post Office inquiry

Greene has just been asked whether she knew that the criminal law team within Royal Mail was involved in prosecutions against sub-postmasters.

She says she wasn't and thought it was dealt with by a criminal law team within the Post Office.

Greene doesn't remember "ever being briefed" on sub-postmaster issues, she says.

Asked whether she accepts she should have known as chief executive, she says: "Yes, I guess I should have known, but I didn't."

Cachella Smith
Reporting from the Post Office inquiry

Dame Moya Greene has been giving evidence to the inquiry for almost an hour now.

So far, she's largely been questioned on how much she knew about issues with Horizon around the 2010 and 2011 period.

She referred a little while ago to Royal Mail's technology estate being "archaic" and "complex".

The ex-chief executive of Royal Mail says she was "generally" aware of the Post Office rolling out the system, but maintains issues were not "emphasised".

This last hour has been a lot of documents, but attendees here remain attentive.

Dame Moya Greene is asked whether she was made aware of Fujitsu's ability to remotely access branch accounts in the Horizon IT system - around the period of 2011 and 2012.

"No, I was not" she replies.

Greene adds in the minutes of the audit and risk committee, it was raised in a way that was "put in the context of Fujitsu not really being prepared for the audit in the previous year" and it "certainly, was not emphasised".

Cachella Smith
Reporting from the inquiry

There's a bit of shuffling in the room here as the witnesses change over.

Swinson didn't say much that elicited reaction from attendees here this morning.

I spoke to some of the attendees here during the lunch break and asked about their thoughts on Swinson's evidence.

Former sub postmaster Wendy Buffrey tells me that this morning we've learnt Swinson "has a box" [of letters] and opens it "occasionally".

She refers to a government "run by civil servants".

Later this afternoon we are also scheduled to hear from Dame Moya Greene, an ex-CEO of Royal Mail.

Greene was chief executive of Royal Mail Group from 2010-2018. Royal Mail was privatised and split from the Post Office in 2012, which was headed by Paula Vennells.

Vennells' appearance before the inquiry in May lead to the emergence of blistering texts between Vennells and Greene. The two exchanged messages after ITV aired its drama in January, which thrust the decades-old scandal back into the spotlight.

"When it was clear the system was at fault, the [Post Office] should have raised a red flag, stopped all proceedings, given people back their money and then tried to compensate them for the ruin this caused in their lives," Greene said in a text message seen by the inquiry.

Vennells agreed this had taken too long and Greene text back: "I don’t know what to say. I think you knew."

Swinson is asked about a section of her witness statement where she describes feeling kept at "arms' length" and as though she was "being managed".

She's asked whether that sums up her general experience on being briefed on the Horizon issue.

"Yes, I think that is what was happening", Swinson responds.

We've returned from the inquiry after lunch with the lawyer representing Paula Vennells posing the first question to Swinson.

Swinson is quizzed on things she said earlier today about Vennells' knowledge of the Clarke advice about the reliability of the witness.

Swinson confirms, when asked that the extent of her knowledge about what Vennells was told, was based on an email she was shown while preparing for the inquiry.

Zoe Conway
Employment correspondent, reporting from the Post Office inquiry

Jo Swinson was full of emotion at one point. Holding back tears, she faced the sub postmasters in the inquiry room and said "I’m sorry. I asked lots of questions but that wasn’t enough."

She was responding to a point put to her by counsel to the Inquiry, Julian Blake KC. He had just said that politicians had been coming to the inquiry "blaming" civil servants and the Post Office and he asked: What is your contribution to this scandal?

Over the last 24 hours Pat McFadden, Sir Ed Davey and Jo Swinson have all expressed regret over a failure to ask enough questions of government officials and the Post Office.

Following some discussions of correspondence from Paula Vennells, Swinson has just made some comments about assurances given to her.

She says she was given assurances not only in writing but in person too.

She describes Vennells looking her in the eye giving these assurances - something she can't "square" with a 2013 email she has since seen detailing concerns around an unsafe witness.

It "beggars belief" Swinson says - Vennells knew there were problems with convictions.

She casts back to the briefing note for the 2012 meeting with Vennells and that she remembered Vennells was an ordained vicar - the comment is met with murmurs of laughter from attendees here.

Swinson says she believed her.

Zoe Conway
Employment correspondent, reporting from the Post Office inquiry

Jo Swinson says she regrets not meeting with the Post Office campaigner Sir Alan Bates.

He wrote to her several times.

In December 2014, he asked to meet, saying he wanted to talk about Horizon from the perspective of those affected rather than those "so desperately trying to keep the truth from you".

In another letter, which he sent whilst she was on maternity leave, he wrote ‘’I doubt (the Post Office) will ever change its stance on this issue until it has had to answer to a select committee or a full independent inquiry is held.’’

Swinson says his correspondence has proved prescient.

She says she was strongly advised by officials not to meet him in order to maintain the government’s independence from an ongoing mediation scheme between the Post Office and sub postmasters.

She says she should have challenged this advice.

Former postal affairs minister Jo Swinson says she was informed that the Post Office would stop sub-postmaster prosecutions - except in a small category of cases - and recalls saying "something like 'about bloody time'".

In her witness statement, Swinson said this was likely around late 2013 or in the summer of 2014.

Cachella Smith
Reporting from the Post Office inquiry

Jo Swinson was on maternity leave between 18 December 2013 to 30 June 2014.

The inquiry is shown a Shareholder Executive presentation from February 2014, which said there was a "general feeling" that Paula Vennells was "not the optimal person" to lead the Post Office to deliver on its commercial strategy.

It also said Vennells had "not been able" to establish a "good" working relationship with Swinson.

Swinson is asked whether this was an accurate representation of her working relationship with Vennells at the time and says she doesn't think it was, adding "I felt we did have quite a good working relationship".

She described the Shareholder Executive presentation as "shocking" and the question of whether a chief executive is fit to do their job is "right up there" as a strategic matter.

She also cites a submission she received about Vennells in November 2013, before going on maternity leave, advising Swinson to "retain her as a director".

Zoe Conway
Employment correspondent, reporting from the Post Office inquiry

The last 24 hours of evidence by former postal affairs ministers Jo Swinson, Pat McFadden and Sir Ed Davey has shone a light on the relationship between ministers and civil servants.

Pat McFadden and Jo Swinson have both talked about the need for ministers to trust what their civil servants are telling them, otherwise the business of government grinds to a halt.

But in her witness statement, Jo Swinson is damning about what one of her senior officials was telling her: "The contrast between what I was briefed as minister and what Richard Callard knew raises questions for me about civil service advice to ministers".

In his witness statement earlier this month, Richard Callard expressed regret that his acceptance of what the Post Office was telling him about Horizon led him to pass on its confidence in the system ‘without appropriate caveats’.

Jo Swinson says ex-Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells "knew there was a problem with an unsafe witness, and she never told me".

She was referring to leading Fujitsu engineer Gareth Jenkins - currently the subject of a Metropolitan Police investigation on suspicion of perjury and perverting the course of justice.

Swinson speaks about the statement, external she made in the Commons on 9 July 2013 and how days later - on 15 July - the Post Office received a memo saying the credibility of their key witness was “fatally undermined".

She reflects on how anyone could read that document and not realise it's something that "demands urgent attention".

"And yet, where did that go? Well, we know that Paula Vennells was aware that there was problems with an unsafe witness, and she never told me", Swinson says.

Swinson says ex-Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells told her “with something of a pained expression” that some sub-postmasters “had their fingers in the till”.

In her witness statement, the former Liberal Democrats leader says Vennells said this to her "in a tone of taking me into her confidence".