The former Post Office chief, Paula Vennells, has handed back her CBE following increasing scrutiny of the Post Office/Horizon IT scandal.
In 2021, Ms Vennells, who lives in a Grade II listed property in Box End, stepped down as governor at Bedford School and minister at the Church of St Owen in Bromham after a high-profile court case – described as the biggest miscarriage of justice in modern legal history – saw 39 prosecutions of postmasters overturned in the court of appeal.
The court found that the Post Office knew there were glitches in the Horizon computerised accounting system it used but nevertheless continued to pursue prosecutions against its employees.
Ms Vennells was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2019 New Years Honours for “services to the Post Office and to charity”.
During her tenure at the Post Office, more than 700 postmasters and mistresses were wrongly prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting between 1999 and 2015 based on faulty information from Horizon software.
During the same period, she was paid £4.5m, £2.2m of which was performance-related bonuses.
Following the court case, Ms Vennells stood down from her community roles in Bedford Borough.
Read: Ex-Post Office chief stands down as Bromham church minister and Bedford School governor
Ms Vennels has returned to the headlines this week following an ITV dramatisation of the Post Office scandal (Mr Bates vs The Post Office) which had provoked over one million people to sign a petition calling on Ms Vennells to be stripped of her CBE.
The 38 Degrees petition was directed at Sir Chris Wormald, Chair of the Forfeiture Committee. At the time of publication, over 1.2 million people had signed the petition.
The Forfeiture Committee can recommend honours are stripped if a person has brought the system into disrepute. It previously removed the knighthood of former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Fred Goodwin due to his role in the collapse of the bank.
Following public pressure, Ms Vennells announced she would return the title.
A leading campaigner on behalf of the sub-postmasters and mistresses, Lord Arbuthnot, said: “The hallmark of Paula Vennells’ time as CEO was that she was willing to accept appalling advice from people in her management and legal teams.
“The consequences of this were far-reaching for the Post Office and devastating for the sub-postmasters. However, there seem to have been no consequences for her.”
In a statement to PA Media, Ms Vennells said: “I continue to support and focus on cooperating 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. I have listened and I confirm that I return my CBE with immediate effect.
“I am truly sorry for the devastation caused to the subpostmasters and their families, whose lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted as a result of the Horizon system.
“I now intend to continue to focus on assisting the inquiry and will not make any further public comment until it has concluded.”
Update: This article was updated on 9 January 2024 at 14:15 to include ‘ex-governor’ in the headline.
