Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells intends to hand back her CBE with immediate effect amid the fallout of the Horizon IT scandal, which led to the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters.
Ms Vennells today said she is ‘truly sorry’ for the ‘devastation’ the scandal had caused to staff falsely accused of fraud when her organisation routinely denied there were problems with its systems.
It comes after demands for her to return the honour intensified when an ITV drama thrust the widespread miscarriage of justice back into the spotlight.
Ms Vennells had also seen Prime Minister Rishi Sunak weigh in behind efforts to strip her of her CBE.
The shamed ex-Post Office chief said: ‘I have listened and I confirm that I return my CBE with immediate effect.
‘I am truly sorry for the devastation caused to the sub-postmasters and their families, whose lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted as a result of the Horizon system’.
Her decision to hand back her honour came after more than a million people signed an online petition to take it off her.
It also followed Downing Street saying Mr Sunak would ‘strongly support’ an investigation by the Honours Forfeiture Committee into whether Ms Vennells should lose the award, which was given for her ‘services to the Post Office and to charity’.
Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake had also said she should consider voluntarily giving up the honour.
Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells intends to hand back her CBE with immediate effect amid the fallout of the Horizon IT scandal, which led to the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters
It comes as ITV’s new drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office has drawn a renewed interest in the scandal after airing last week, with Mr Bates being played by Toby Jones (pictured in the role). It raised the case again and piled pressure on Ms Vennells
Postmasters accused of theft by Post Office celebrate outside the High Court In London after they had their convictions overturned. Thirty-nine former sub-postmasters who were convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting due to the Post Office’s defective Horizon accounting system had their names cleared by the Court of Appeal
More than 1 million had signed an online petition calling for the former Post Office chief executive officer to hand back her CBE
In a written statement issued to the PA news agency, Ms Vennells said: ‘I continue to support and focus on co-operating with the inquiry and expect to be giving evidence in the coming months.
‘I have so far maintained my silence as I considered it inappropriate to comment publicly while the inquiry remains ongoing and before I have provided my oral evidence.
‘I am, however, aware of the calls from sub-postmasters and others to return my CBE.
Ms Vennells said: ‘I have listened and I confirm that I return my CBE with immediate effect’. File picture
‘I now intend to continue to focus on assisting the inquiry and will not make any further public comment until it has concluded.’
A Government source said Ms Vennells effectively handing back her CBE was ‘the right thing to do’.
Former subpostmistress Jo Hamilton said she was ‘glad’ the ex-Post Office had handed her CBE back, adding: ‘It’s a shame it took just a million people to cripple her conscience.’
Ms Hamilton, who was wrongfully convicted in 2008 of stealing thousands of pounds from the village shop in South Warnborough, Hampshire, said: ‘It shows the people have spoken – about everything really.
‘It’s not just about her CBE, it’s about how disgusting the whole thing is.
‘We’re all sick and tired of people taking money, being paid exorbitant amounts of money, and politicians taking absolutely no notice of you whatsoever… I think the people are just sick of it.’
More than one million people had, by last night, signed the petition addressed to the Honours Forfeiture Committee’s chairman, Sir Chris Wormald, calling for Ms Vennells to be stripped of the honour in light of her role in the Horizon IT scandal which saw hundreds of postmasters wrongly prosecuted, bankrupted and in some cases jailed.
More than 700 Post Office branch managers were convicted after Horizon, a faulty Fujitsu accounting software, made it look like money was missing from their shops.
But incredibly Ms Vennells was given a CBE for services to the Post Office in 2019 – the same year the postmasters were awarded £58million for the false prosecutions on her watch.
Despite outrage at the time, it has taken the recent ITV drama, Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, to kick ministers into action to overturn hundreds of wrongful convictions that still stand.
The scandal is seen as one of the UK’s biggest miscarriages of justice and has gained recent national attention over recent days thanks to Mr Bates Vs The Post Office airing on ITV
Rishi Sunak revealed on Sunday that the Government is looking at exonerating all subpostmasters caught up in the Horizon scandal
Ms Vennells, 65, has been accused of playing a leading role in covering up IT flaws behind the miscarriage of justice. She apologised for the scandal after some postmasters overturned their convictions at the Court of Appeal but had been silent on calls for her to return her CBE until today.
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith and fellow Tory MP Chris Loder last night said they had both written to the Cabinet Office asking it to strip Ms Vennells of her honour.
Downing Street yesterday said Mr Sunak would ‘strongly support’ the Honours Forfeiture Committee ‘if they were to choose to investigate’.
The PM’s intervention echoes a similar move a decade ago when David Cameron backed the committee to investigate whether former RBS chief Sir Fred Goodwin should lose his knighthood following the near collapse of the bank.
Pressure was also mounting on Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, who ignored repeated pleas for help from postmasters during his time as Post Office minister in the Coalition government.
One victim of the scandal urged Sir Ed to ‘look in the mirror’, while Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson said many people had gone to prison ‘due to him not listening’.
Sir Ed yesterday insisted he had been ‘lied’ to by Post Office executives but did not offer an apology to those wronged. Some Lib Dem MPs were privately questioning whether he would be able to continue if the scandal deepens.
Last night, MPs were told that ministers are urgently pursuing new options to overturn the convictions of more than 700 postmasters. Just 93 have successfully navigated the glacial process so far, leaving hundreds more unable to claim compensation.
Mr Sunak yesterday said the treatment of the postmasters over two decades had been ‘an absolutely appalling miscarriage of justice’.
Speaking during a visit to Accrington, Lancashire, the PM added: ‘The stories are appalling, people were treated absolutely appallingly, that’s wrong and we should do everything we can to make it right.’
He pointed out that as Chancellor he had approved the compensation scheme which has now paid out almost £150million to thousands of people.
And he went on: ‘People should know that we are on it and we want to make this right. The money’s been set aside.
‘Now what we are now looking at is how can we speed all of that up? Understandably we want to get that out of the door as quickly as possible.
‘It was simply wrong what happened, they shouldn’t have been treated like this, and we should do everything we can to make it right for them.’