Ali Abbas Ahmadi
Reporting from the inquiry

Before the break, we heard a tense exchange between Paula Vennells, inquiry chair Sir Wyn Williams and a member of the public.

They were talking about the Post Office's Network Transformation project, where sub-postmasters were given new contracts to sign - which they feared would leave them much worse off.

Williams interrupted proceedings to ask whether the new contracts were optional for old sub-postmasters to sign or whether they were "cajoled" into doing so.

Vennells replied that they were optional.

"They were compulsory!" shouted someone from the public gallery.

Jason Beer KC, counsel for the inquiry, immediately stood up to ask the audience member to refrain from shouting out.

Many of the people here today have been personally affected by the Horizon scandal, and have very strong feelings about the evidence they're hearing.

One more exchange from before the inquiry had a quick break.

Stein says Vennells was "fighting tooth and claw" to protect the Post Office's reputation, rather than address the problems experienced by sub-postmasters.

"You set the tone and the tone was to eliminate them, wasn’t it?" says Stein, which Vennells denies.

She describes two "undocumented" conversations she had with Jane MacLeod, the then general counsel to the Post Office between 2015 to 2019.

"I told her this feels completely wrong to me, what can we do, we shouldn't fight in court with sub-postmasters."

Vennells says MacLeod first told her the Post Office would try to settle cases, but the second time they spoke MacLeod said the "only way was to take it through" - that is, to court.

"I regret hugely the group litigation and in view of where we are today it is unacceptable reading."

We're now on a short break.

Earlier this morning, Paula Vennells reflected on her role as chief executive, insisting she had to rely on the expertise of her colleagues

"You are not responsible for everything that happens underneath you," she said.

Former sub-postmaster Scott Darlington had his conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal in April 2021.

Speaking of his ordeal, he said: "It affects everything. When you apply for a job you've got to tick you've got a criminal record.

"I was 50-odd having to do that, so couldn't get a job for three and a half years.

"I got a three-month suspended prison sentence. That stays on your record for seven years."

Image source, PA Media

Stein asks Vennells whether she was aware of the system in place that meant sub-postmasters were expected to pay for any shortfall in their accounts - which in some cases amounted to tens of thousands of pounds.

Vennells says she was aware of it but that she didn't have a close involvement with it - to which Stein accuses her of repeatedly laying blame on others around her.

Vennells says she was trying to run an organisation of 60,000 people and that she did not have sight of all decisions.

Stein then asks when it came to her attention that sub-postmasters were being asked to make up sometimes large shortfalls.

After a lengthy pause, she says: “I imagine when we started looking at details of mediation cases.”

Dearbail Jordan
Business reporter

So, here's what we know so far.

Around 700 to 800 sub-postmasters will get their convictions overturned today when the Post Office Horizon System Offences Bill is given royal assent - which means turning a bill into law.

But not everyone who was convicted in relation to the Horizon IT system will see their name cleared.

People who brought their cases in front of the Court of Appeal and lost will not be cleared. Also prosecutions by the Department for Work and Pensions that resulted in convictions will not be included in today's action. In all, around 100 people will still have a conviction.

Richard Moorhead, professor of legal ethics at University of Exeter, said that while today is "a great moment for all people having their convictions quashed" it is "tinged with sadness for all those people being left behind".

Stein is now going through Vennells' witness statement, confirming all the times she heard there were bugs with the Horizon software.

He lays out the evidence, saying she had learned by mid-2013 there were remote access issues and there had been numerous letters from sub-postmasters in the press on the issue.

"You also said that by 2012 you learned the Post Office actually took their own people to court, which you said you didn't didn’t know before," says Stein.

He asks whether her belief in Horizon had been "shaken" at this point.

She says her understanding was the bugs had been fixed, that Gareth Jenkins (who had been an expert witness for the Post Office) had been stood down, and that she was not aware that the elements around him had caused the Post Office to breach duties as prosecutors.

But Stein responds by delivering a succession of statements that came in “bang bang bang attacking the horizon system” - saying by the end of 2013 she could not have had any doubts that the Horizon system needed a review.

We turn to the contentious issue of Paula Vennells' CBE, which she was stripped of in January after the outcry over the Horizon scandal intensified in the wake of ITV's Mr Bates vs. the Post Office drama.

Sam Stein KC puts it to Vennells that she was given the title in recognition for making the Post Office commercially viable.

"To parade the fact that this was your work, as CEO of the Post Office, that led the Post Office's transformation into commercial viability, that's what you got the gong for - isn't it?" he says.

Vennells says she does not know the specific reasons for the CBE - which she was appointed in 2019 - but that she believes it was also linked to her charitable work and her efforts in keeping Post Offices open across the UK, with previous closures "devastating communities".

Ali Abbas Ahmadi
Reporting from the inquiry

Vennells has broken down in tears, not for the first time in her three days of evidence, as she spoke of how much she "loves the Post Office".

I hear exasperated sighs and scoffs in the room. Someone's phone goes off, its chirpy, upbeat ringtone contrasting with her tears.

"I worked as hard as I possibly could to deliver the best Post Office for the UK," Vennells says, tearfully, adding that she wishes her organisation knew at the time what the inquiry now knows.

"That sounds like absolute rubbish, doesn't it," responds Sam Stein KC.

Ali Abbas Ahmadi
Reporting from the inquiry

Image source, Getty Images

During the break, I spoke with Chris Head, a former sub-postmaster and campaigner who has been fighting to exonerate everyone who was wrongly prosecuted for years.

"It's wonderful that the bill has gone through," he says, referring to the new law passed by parliament that will quash convictions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It's been a long road, he says, but "there's still a lot of work to be done" to exonerate everyone who has not been covered by this law.

Speaking of Vennells' appearance at the inquiry, he says it's important not to scapegoat one individual.

While she is certainly one of those responsible, he says, "she must have been under enormous pressure from the government to deliver" in her position as CEO.

The inquiry is now hearing from Sam Stein KC, who also represents a group of sub-postmasters.

Stein says: "You papered over the cracks and you dragged the Post Office into financial profitability over the debris that your firm had made of the lives of sub-postmasters - that’s what has happened here isn't it Ms Vennells?"

Vennells responds, alluding to what she said at the beginning of her evidence that there are "no words" that can express her regret at what happened to the sub-postmasters.

She adds that she had an objective as chief executive to bring the company to commercial sustainability.

Michael Sheils McNamee
BBC News

For context, a fair chunk of the questioning this morning has focused on the privatisation of Royal Mail in 2013.

The state previously had a stake in Royal Mail but began privatisation in December of that year - raising about £3.3bn for the government.

A lot of what Paula Vennells is being questioned on focuses on the link between the Royal Mail and the Post Office - which is a limited company but remains entirely in public ownership.

It is mentioned in the inquiry that for many members of the public, the Post Office and Royal Mail are seen almost as being the same thing - and prior to privatisation, Post Office Limited was a subsidiary of Royal Mail Group.

She has been pushed about whether she tried to suppress the Horizon IT scandal to try and make sure the privatisation of Royal Mail went smoothly.

Edward Henry KC now turns to a man who had been an expert witness for the Post Office, former senior Fujitsu engineer Gareth Jenkins, who was a key architect of the Horizon software.

Jenkins made a false statement to court about Horizon in 2010 - contradicting a report he had written days earlier - which helped wrongly jail pregnant postmistress Seema Misra.

Henry says Vennells knew about Jenkins being an "unsafe witness and did nothing to disclose it”.

She insists that wasn't the case and that if the Post Office had known it should have disclosed it.

As we've been mentioning, today is Vennells' final day of evidence to the Post Office inquiry. Her appearance this week is the first time she's spoken publicly about the scandal in nearly a decade.

Here's a recap of her evidence on Wednesday and Thursday.

Emma Simpson
Business correspondent

Wrongly convicted sub-postmasters may not be aware of new legislation quashing convictions of sub-postmasters because no one in government has written to them about it, a lawyer representing victims has said.

Solicitor David Enright, from Howe & Co, said he was worried that given we’re now in election purdah there’s unlikely to be any action at all until a new government comes in.

“It’s like announcing Christmas, but not giving the date,” he says.

As a reminder, the bill was approved in Parliament on Thursday and comes into law later today.

Edward Henry KC next focuses on July 2013, when there was to be the privatisation of Royal Mail was to be announced, as well as the publication of the interim report from Second Sight, an independent forensic accountant.

Henry puts to Vennells that she was given the job of "keep[ing] the lid on this", adding that it would have been politically damaging both to the Post Office and to the privatisation plans.

Vennells responds that she had no role in the privatisation, adding that the inquiry has seen many conversations and documents showing that she hadn't drawn a link with privatisation.

Lee Williamson, one of the hundreds of sub-postmasters who will have his convictions overturned today, has spoken of his conflicting emotions as the Post Office Offences bill passes into law.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he was "overjoyed and very grateful that this day has arrived... and then the anger bubbles below that it has taken away 12 years of your life".

Williamson, from Northern Ireland, was convicted in 2014 and given an 18-month sentence suspended for three years.

He said compensation was a "secondary" concern for him.

"The fight over these past number of years was to get our names cleared. To have our names cleared is actually the equivalent to having a million pounds compensation," he said.

Ali Abbas Ahmadi
Reporting from the inquiry

"This is la-la land, isn't it?" Edward Henry KC says of the account Vennells is giving.

Sarcastic laugher rings out in the inquiry room.

The Post Office's lawyers, Cartwright King, knew Fujitsu had remote access to branch accounts but you didn't?, Henry asks Vennells incredulously.

She says she had no idea Cartwright King were aware of Fujitsu's remote access.

Several people at the inquiry shake their heads and scoff.

Here is some of the action we have been seeing at the inquiry this morning.

Edward Henry KC, representing some sub-postmasters, has pushed Paula Vennells on her evidence to the inquiry, and put it to her that she continues to "live in a cloud of denial".

Vennells is next asked by Henry if she agrees that she is "politically adept".

"I would suggest that wasn’t the case, this was my first job in a public sector organisation," Vennells responds.

Inquiry chair Sir Wyn Williams interjects to say both Vennells and Henry "have a hard task and need to let the other speak".

Henry goes on to accuse Vennells of providing a "craven, self-serving account" of herself to the inquiry in a 750-page witness statement.

Vennells takes a moment, and says she has tried to respond to the inquiry to the "best of my ability”, adding that she had answered honestly and could not have worked harder.