CEO at the centre of the scandal that noticed innocent of us bankrupted and a few despatched to penal complex steps down from NHS role as stress for her resignation grows
Paula Vennells has stepped down from her role at an NHS belief as public and political scrutiny grows following revelations all the strategy in which thru the Post Converse of industrial’s treatment of subpostmasters beneath her leadership.
The historic Post Converse of industrial chief executive acknowledged in a statement that stepping down from her role as chair at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Belief used to be a deepest resolution. She’s going to leave in April 2021.
Vennells led the Post Converse of industrial all the strategy in which thru a scandal that noticed a total bunch of subpostmasters wrongly prosecuted for financial crimes after experiencing unexplained accounting shortfalls in branches. It is far described as being the biggest miscarriage of justice in standard English factual historical past.
In 2009, a Computer Weekly investigation revealed that subpostmasters, who rush branches, had been blamed for these shortfalls which they suspected had been introduced on by the laptop system they use, identified as Horizon. They had been forced to pay serve money that, truly, used to be never taken. Hundreds had been prosecuted and a few despatched to penal complex. Many more misplaced their livelihoods when made bankrupt, and others suffered stress-related in unhappy health health (ogle timeline of Computer Weekly’s coverage beneath).
The Post Converse of industrial continuously denied that Horizon might perchance maybe be accountable for unexplained shortfalls, but in December 2019, a multimillion-pound community litigation, which had begun within the High Court over a year earlier, ended with the Post Converse of industrial conceding that it used to be depraved, apologising and paying £57.5m in damages.
No contemporary or historic Post Converse of industrial executive has been held to myth. For the length of her seven years at the Post Converse of industrial helm from 2012, Vennells earned millions of pounds and, in 2019, used to be awarded a CBE for companies to the Post Converse of industrial and charity. That identical year, upright before the court case ended, she left the Post Converse of industrial to possess within the role of chair of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Healthcare Belief, one in every of the biggest trusts within the NHS.
Vennells’ resignation comes at a time when, following stress, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Belief requested for an honest review of the formula it went thru when recruiting her.
In February, after reading relating to the treatment of subpostmasters by the Post Converse of industrial beneath Vennells’ leadership, a healthcare educated referred her appointment at the belief to the Care Quality Price (CQC) beneath an NHS law that objectives to construct certain that executives are appropriate.
On the time, the belief defended its resolution and acknowledged the trends within the Horizon scandal at the time had been in response to what used to be understood at the time of Vennells’ appointment, which it acknowledged equipped no additional insight for the board to possess into consideration.
However the scandal has since deepened. In June this year, the Prison Cases Evaluate Price (CCRC) despatched 47 conditions, whereby subpostmasters had been prosecuted as criminals in response to Horizon knowledge, to the Court of Attraction to be reviewed as attainable miscarriages of justice. The Post Converse of industrial acknowledged it wouldn’t contest 44 of these, making it extremely doubtless that the subpostmasters can have their prison files quashed.
In October, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Belief acknowledged it used to be looking out for out external factual suggestion relating to the processes it went thru when finishing up checks on Vennells’ health for the role as its chair.
A spokesperson for the belief acknowledged at the time: “Given our chair’s old role at the Post Converse of industrial and the complexity of the shy away with the Horizon laptop system, we have taken external factual suggestion to construct certain that our processes are sufficiently comprehensive. We continue to possess into myth trends within the Horizon factual circulate and related inquiries since our chair’s appointment.”
In March, after subpostmaster prosecutions had been despatched to the Court of Attraction for review, Helen Pitcher, chairman at the CCRC, acknowledged: “When you happen to are getting so many conditions which all expose to an IT system that has been put in, anyone somewhere will have to had been asking if this is the fault of the particular particular person or the system?”
She acknowledged that presupposes the topic went to the board and used to be highlighted to them, and that senior executives at the Post Converse of industrial had been responsive to it. “The historic CEO Paula Vennells spoke relatively openly about these conditions within the press,” acknowledged Pitcher.
In her leaving statement, Vennells acknowledged: “By the purpose I leave, I’m able to had been within the establish for 2 years. Whereas I shall be very unhappy to pass, it is a deepest resolution at the factual time. I’m so overjoyed with what we stay all the strategy in which thru our hospitals – from the truthful care and treatment to the outstanding research and training. I continue to be amazed on day by day foundation by the dedication and abilities of our of us, no longer least all the strategy in which thru the pandemic when so grand has been requested of everybody.”
Dilapidated NHS manual psychiatrist Minh Alexander, who made the genuine referral to the CQC, acknowledged it wouldn’t surprise her if there had been stress on Vennells to resign.
“She struck me as defiant at the belief AGM in July, and he or she used to be stammer for her deputy chair to publicly claim that the belief had rigorously and totally notion-about her health, when this used to be no longer the case. The belief annual file issued in June did not possess any save of her departure. The belief reluctantly agreed to commission an external file on her health most efficient at a unhurried stage,” acknowledged Alexander.
Campaigners and a few MPs want to ogle Vennells stripped of her CBE, which she used to be awarded upright before a High Court think delivered a court judgment damning of the Post Converse of industrial.
In a contemporary Horizon scandal debate within the Home of Commons, Gavin Newlands, SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, acknowledged the existence of 1 in all his constituents used to be in tatters and requested: “Who goes to be held to blame?”
For the length of the controversy, postal affairs minister Paul Scully used to be requested by Julian Lewis, honest MP for Recent Wooded space East, whether he accepted “that these recount or historic Post Converse of industrial officers who perpetrated this catastrophe and perpetuated the agony of the victims desires to be punished, no longer promoted, and shamed, as an alternative of rewarded with honours”.
In his judgment, High Court think, Peter Fraser, slammed the industrial practices of the Post Converse of industrial Vennells led, describing its denial that Horizon might perchance maybe be accountable for accounting shortfalls as amounting “to the 21st century an identical of placing forward that the Earth is flat”.
Tiresome closing month, all the strategy in which thru a listening to of subpostmaster conditions within the Court of Attraction, the existence of a doc emerged, which allegedly proves the Post Converse of industrial used to be educated by one in every of its dangle barristers that its educated witnesses, within the prosecutions of subpostmasters, failed to give info that can have undermined prosecutions The disclosure, which has no longer been made public, is from a barrister, Simon Clarke, to the Post Converse of industrial about evidence given by an educated look within the rigors.
Conservative perceive James Arbuthnot no longer too long ago acknowledged the doc might perchance current that the Post Converse of industrial “lied to, and used to be in contempt of, Parliament” all the strategy in which thru a old inquiry into the scandal.
Following Vennells’ resignation, he acknowledged: “Can it is a accident that rapidly after it grew to change into clear that the Post Converse of industrial lied to Parliament, Paula Vennells announced she used to be stepping down from the NHS job?”
Alexander acknowledged: “It appears to be like, from the sequence of events, that the sizzling Court of Attraction complaints, revelations of a barrister’s suggestion beforehand undisclosed by the Post Converse of industrial and Lord Arbuthnot’s related competitors that the Post Converse of industrial lied and misled Parliament might perchance had been crucial within the announcement of Paula Vennells’ departure.”
Individually, a historic Post Converse of industrial executive criticised by Fraser used to be director Angela van den Bogerd, who faced detailed questioning all the strategy in which thru the trial. When Fraser handed down his 300-web page judgment on 15 March 2019, he acknowledged: “There had been two snort matters where [Van den Bogerd] did not give me frank evidence, and sought to obfuscate matters, and mislead me.”
Van den Bogerd left the Post Converse of industrial quietly and, in response to BBC Wales, used to be closing week named “head of of us” by the Football Association of Wales.
Meanwhile, subpostmaster victims of the scandal are quiet making an strive to rebuild their lives and are quiet combating for justice on many fronts. They had been awarded £57.5m in damages, but after factual charges had been taken out, they had been left with upright £11m between them. The JFSA is stressful that the authorities pay the factual charges to leave victims with a fairer settlement, but the authorities has refused. One claimant who used to be wrongly despatched to penal complex, which left her existence in tatters, obtained upright £9,000 compensation.
Content Continues Below
Study more on IT for retail and logistics
![]()
Executive covers its ears as criticism by victims of Post Converse of industrial abuse heads to ombudsman
By: Karl Flinders
![]()
Post Converse of industrial accused of lying and being in contempt of Parliament in IT scandal
By: Karl Flinders
![]()
Subpostmasters prefer £300m from a authorities that allowed Post Converse of industrial ‘reign of panic’
By: Karl Flinders
![]()
Fujitsu crew beneath investigation for attainable perjury in Post Converse of industrial IT trial named
By: Karl Flinders
