Paula Vennells ‘slavishly maintained Horizon was robust but knew of faults’
Dame Moya Greene said she believed Ms Vennells knew about faults in the Post Office system.
Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells “slavishly” maintained the position that the Horizon system was robust despite knowing it was faulty, her former Royal Mail Group counterpart has said.
Dame Moya Greene told the Horizon IT inquiry she initially sent messages of support to Ms Vennells because she believed the ordained priest had been “vilified” for her role in the scandal.
The inquiry heard that Dame Moya changed her stance after seeing evidence emerge from the inquiry which led her to believe the former Post Office chief executive knew about Horizon faults.
In an exchange of messages before she accused Ms Vennells of knowing about the system errors, Dame Moya told her: “What a terrible time. Just tell the truth.
“I know you are a good person and friends will be hard to find now.
“What has happened is a terrible… horrible thing. So many lives ruined. Yours too.
“Just tell the truth – what you knew, what you thought at the time, what they told you and mistakes you made.”
She later told Ms Vennells, in an exchange previously shown to the inquiry during the former Post Office boss’s evidence: “When it was clear the system was at fault, the PO 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.”
