Former Post Office boss hands back CBE as government considers overturning convictions

Former Post Office boss hands back CBE as government considers overturning convictions

Paul venel has got the CBE joking services to the post office not anymore thanks to the ITV drama a slow burning campaign has become a raging fire and pressurized the former post office boss to return her CBE in a statement Paula venel said I’m aware of the calls from sub postmasters

And others to return my CBE I have listened and I confirmed that I return my CBE with immediate effect I 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 I was and remain deeply disturbed by what has come to light after seeing Paul venel who is also a church of England priest portrayed in the ITV drama more than a million people had signed an online petition calling for her to be stripped of the honor the

Prime Minister weighed in supporting the idea as did many sub postmasters delighted in a way that she’s given it back but now she’s giving it back it stops the government taking it away from her VJ parck wrongly jailed for fraud had to wait 11 years to be cleared I

Don’t think she wanted to give it back but with all this pressure over her heart a million signatures I think she she did the best thing she for her not for US minister to move second reading Mr Kevin Hollen R thank you speaker three weeks ago this was the Common’s turnout to debate

Postmaster compensation last night after the TV drama a very different picture I think it would be sensible and reasonable for the former CEO to hand back an honor that was given for services to the post office one longstanding campaigner today said that wasn’t enough got a letter

Here it’s my fourth letter I’ve written to the fortitude committee to actually try and get them to withdraw this honor did she bout inevitable I think she did this week uh but uh what we need to know now is why she was given it in the first

Place in 2019 what’s your suspicion who nominated her well number 10 today have said they welcomed this well they gave it to her in 2019 they also appointed her as a non-executive uh on the board of the cabinet office and appointed her to NHS trust and then now we learn that

She was also in the running for the being the bishop of London the person who did get that job in 2018 was Sarah mull but Paula venel it emerged today ran her close if she’d been appointed she would have been the Church of England’s thirdd ranking cleric a member

Of the House of Lords and assisting at the king’s coronation the annulment of Paul Avenel CBE must now be approved by the king it isn’t as her statement suggested with immediate effect but the humiliation is Gary have been reporting while Fujitsu the Japanese technology firm which manufactured the faulty Horizon

Software will be quizzed by MPS next week about their role the company is also facing growing cause to pay compensation to the affected postal staff and Downing Street hinted this morning the Scandal could affect its current and future government contracts so how integral is fujitsu’s role in our

Public Services Simeon Brown has been finding out whilst the Japanese it supplier Fujitsu is proud of its work with our government our government is facing embarrassment over how its IT services have become beholden to a foreign m multinational company involved in one of the greatest miscarriages of Justice in British

History despite the political backlash fitsu was still considered a strategic supplier of the government that has received billions from taxpayers even after the post office Scandal this is one recent contract there’s now a way to warn you it looks like this and sounds like this if the post office Scandal is a political

Emergency some may not be comforted with the company being contracted to deliver a new National emergency alert system for mobile phones at an estimated cost of up to5 million Fujitsu a major defense supplier also has a recent contract with the foreign office to provide Communications the company is expected to be paid £184

Million let’s be honest since 2012 the public sector has awarded the company almost 200 contracts worth a staggering 6.8 billion and let’s not forget the company still has a contract with post office where the Horizon system still runs why have governments been so unwilling to deliver Services themselves I think for

Many services government just simply doesn’t have the capacity there’s clearly an open question about whether the contracts that Fujitsu are delivering uh at the moment or the contracts that they could bid for in the future whether fij Jitsu will be allowed to bid for those does the government

Currently have the powers to stop and take away the contract that the Jitsu currently has historically government bodies have been reluctant uh to exclude suppliers for fear um that they would be sued for those decisions but are the companies days under public contract numbered the government is under

Pressure to ensure Fujitsu foots the bill for the Lost livelihoods caused by their software it won’t necessarily just be the taxpayer you and I and my constituents in central Devon as you put it that are on the hook for this money this is how Fujitsu emerged in the UK

When it purchased the British firm International computers limited who first developed the Horizon software in the 1990s the company Rose as a strategic supplier as successive governments have increasingly deferred to the expertise of private companies in Tech I’ve seen an awful lot of Tech procurement in my

Time and I would say that in general the people doing the buying are infinitely less well informed than the people doing the selling what the post office Scandal shows us is partly that we are very obedient compliant almost infantilized I think in front of Technology but it’s

Also we have bought a a narrative which says well people make mistakes but technology doesn’t this is this is the consequence of that blind deference although these postmasters manag to overturn their convictions they remain out of pocket as fij Jitsu post UK profits and the country watches the dramatization cheers

Hi it’s good to be here and you welcome to fitsu the company say it has apologized for its role in The Suffering of the postmasters that the current inquiry is examining the events and it would be inappropriate to comment but what many ask is just what consequences would the company finally

Face Simon Brown reporting so how much is this whole Fiasco likely to cost you us the taxpayer our economics correspondent Helia Abrahim is here Helia crunch the numbers for us well Matt we’ve been trying to unpick the Staggering sums of money involved in this Scandal we’ve been working with government procurement analyst tussle

Who have identified million pound contracts awarded to yet more lawyers this time to advise the Department of Business itself on how to manage manag the crisis I can tell you that firms adles Shaw Godard Dentons and free and that’s actually the firm that represent the represented the postmasters in the

2019 trial have been hired over the last 18 months costing over £350,000 a month in total now that all adds up to £ 6.5 million and Matt that is separate from the legal fees that are being accumulated by the post office itself that’s a 146 million and add on to that the cost

Of the inquiry itself which is50 million pounds and Counting okay that adds up to quite a lot what about money for those most grieved in this the post Masters and post Mistresses compensation well indeed uh we’ve got four pots of money here from the court case to postmasters

Who lost out in pay to compensation for those who were wrongly uh convicted I have to stress this is money that’s been in near marked it hasn’t actually yet all gone to uh uh victims the money set aside by government as not clown to 1.2 billion pound so that means all together

That amounts to 1.4 billion pound now that kind of sum could easily pay for for example 46,000 new teachers it’s already been described as one of the most egregious miscarriages of Justice in British history it’s very quickly becoming one of the most costly to taxpayers Hy

Thanks very much let’s go to Jackie Le Jackie well in Westminster now as the labor MP Kevan Jones who you just saw in Gary’s report he supported victims of the post office Scandal for several years and is on the horizon compensation Advisory Board um Mr Jones just to begin

The huge sums of taxpayer money being spent on trying to sort out this mess while victims wait for compensation I’m assuming that just adds insult to injury well it does and the key point and message from this week has got to be which Alan Bates said uh that we need to

Get compensation to these victims as quickly as possible uh but remember if you also add in the over hundred million pounds of post office spent fighting Alan Bates and the uh claimants group and that was our taxpayers money which was used in a case where they knew that

They had not elect to stand on but they still used it to weaponize the legal system against the campaigners so as you’ve said you know you’re on the Compensation Board what discussions are ongoing are you able to make it clear to government what you want to happen right

Now are meetings planned well we have a meeting tomorrow afternoon actually and uh we’ve been trying to streamline the process in terms of compensation also ensuring that there’s Independence we’ve now got s Ros Cranson a high court judge former high court judge you will now sit and see whether these conversation

Elements are uh Fair but we also need to discuss the issue around those 927 cases where people’s convictions have not yet been overturned yes and that is clearly a very tricky issue isn’t it I mean how do you want it to be resolved well it is and I think the government’s given

Indication it’s got to be done uh my starting point I think my fellow members of the board are very clear we we wrote to the justice secret Before Christmas to say that this uh needs to be uh done uh we now need to work out the detail

Exactly how we’re going to do it but I’m certainly termined I know my fellow board members are that this needs to be done I mean one of the suggestions has been that there could be some sort of one-off law to exonerate all of those who were convicted now it would require

A one-off Act of Parliament and we heard the former Attorney General Dominic grieve express some concern about that today um the idea of political interference in the judicial process he said that if you use parliament in this way it is in a sense of parliamentary interference and he’s quite worried

About it do you share those concerns I respect Dominic’s opinion but I think the other concern I have is that you’ve got a situation here where the justice system is rep reputation that allows this to happen uh is already damaged and we need also a system which not only

Overturns this but gives some credibility back to that system of course one of the other key issues here is accountability the post office Fujitsu will there be accountability here do you think you know what’s what’s Crystal Clear is while the lives of these people the postal staff was slowly

Being destroyed over a good length of time the post office continued to make profits Fujitsu continued to get valuable contracts from government what should happen now well I’m determined I think the campaigners determined to get compensation for them individuals but what they want is uh those that took

These decisions were involved to be held to account and I think that is got to happen in terms of fij Jitsu I’ve got to say we’ been completely silent this week what should happen the government was a a matter of Court should put a man mandatori on any uh new contracts going

To that company until uh they give a full explanation of what they did uh in this Scandal and just very briefly would you anticipate them paying some of the compensation would that be your view well I I think uh when you just look at the evidence that’s in public domain

Already uh I think they have a case to answer I think problem is now we’ve got the excellent inquiry which is going ahead at the moment and people seem to be hiding behind that but they’ll not be able to hide behind that forever govern Jones thanks very much for talking to us today

The former Post Office boss Paula Vennells has handed back her CBE, saying she’s truly sorry for the devastation caused to the victims of the Horizon scandal.

Meanwhile the Government says it’s urgently working on a way to clear the names of hundreds of former subpostmasters and postmistresses who were wrongly convicted – and speeding up their compensation.