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Paula Vennells was the chief executive officer of Post Office Limited from 2012 to 2019. It was under her leadership that Post Office was embroiled in a scandal that wrongfully accused over 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses of theft, fraud, and false accounting, due to financial discrepancies between 1999 and 2015.
In reality, these discrepancies were reportedly caused by glitches in Horizon, Post Office's new IT system introduced in 1999, by the Japanese company Fujitsu.
However, more recently, new details of the scandal have come to light as ITV aired its four-part drama series, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, on New Year. Audiences of the show grew outraged at the company and its then-leader for what has been termed as the "most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history" by the BBC. Viewers are now calling for Paula Vennells to be stripped of her CBE.
In fact, outraged fans of the show voiced their complaints against Paula Vennells on X (formerly Twitter), with one person noting that she "should be behind bars."
Paula Vennells was allegedly paid £3.7 million during her tenure as chief executive officer of Post Office
Born in 1959, Paula Vennells' portfolio boasts of high-profile companies such as Unilever, L’Oreal, Morrisons, and Dunhelm. Paula Vennells joined Post Office as a group network director in 2007, and she quickly rose through the ranks to become the managing director in 2010 and chief executive officer in 2012. Under her leadership, the company went from losing £120 million a year to making a profit, The Irish Sun reported.
According to The Daily Mirror, Paula Vennells was allegedly paid £ 3.7 million during her tenure as chief executive officer of Post Office. She routinely oversaw the company while reportedly denying any allegations of wrongdoing. Only after the scandal blew up, did she say she was "truly sorry" for the "suffering" caused to sub-postmasters who were wrongly convicted of offences, as per the Express' reports.
Paula Vennells stepped down as chief executive officer following the 2019 court trial, where the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses sued the company. That same year, in the 2019 New Year's Honors List, Vennells received a CBE for services to the Post Office and to charity.
According to the Mirror, Vennells issued an apology for the scandal, saying:
“It was and remains a source of great regret to me that these colleagues and their families were affected over so many years.”
In April 2021, she apologized again and said she intended to “work with the Government inquiry to ensure that staff and the public get the answers they deserve” as more wrongful convictions against the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were dropped.
As per The Irish Sun, Paula Vennells was also an ordained minister and a minister at the Church of St Owen near Bedford. She was also reportedly the chair of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and a Non-Executive Board Member at the Cabinet Office.
According to the UK Government website, Paula Vennells also served as the government’s Financial Inclusion Policy Forum and the Ethical Investment Advisory Group for the Church of England. Following the scandal, Vennells quit all the aforementioned positions, and it is currently unknown whether Vennells is still employed.
On the personal front, it is reported that Paula Vennells had met her husband John at her university's club. The couple have two sons together, Luke and Edward.
Paula Vennells faces backlash after the airing of ITV drama, people now demand she return her CBE
Following the airing of ITV's Mr Bates vs The Post Office, netizens demanded that Paula Vennells forfeit her CBE as more details of the scandal emerged in the show. People on X have penned down their shock and outrage at the Post Office scandal.
Alan Bates, one of the sub-postmasters wrongly accused of fraud and theft, was the person who rallied and campaigned for his fellow victims. For his efforts, he was awarded the CBE, but he turned it down after stating that he would not hold the honor when Vennells still has it. While talking to Good Morning Britain, he also called for Vennells' CBE to be revoked.
"I mean it would have been a slap in the face to the rest of the group because Paula Venells, the CEO for many years of Post Office, received a CBE for her services to Post Office. Well, what service has she actually done?"
He continued:
"She's caused devastation to a major British institution that was at the heart of communities. She's ruined thousands of lives over the years. What on earth has she done to deserve that? It should be taken away now!"
According to the Mirror, Bates and five other victims sued the Post Office in December 2021 and won £58 million for 555 people falsely convicted between 1999 to 2015. The criminal convictions of 39 former workers were also overturned by the Court of Appeal on April 23, 2021.
The Post Office scandal turned the lives of hundreds of people upside down, with many driven to bankruptcy. In fact, 33 people reportedly died before they could be cleared of their false charges and four allegedly committed suicide.
More details of the scandal unfolded in the four-part drama series Mr Bates vs The Post Office on ITV. The first episode aired on January 1, 2024, and the last episode is slated to air on January 4, 2024.
