Paula Vennells’ legal team has told the Horizon IT inquiry to treat the evidence of some witnesses “cautiously”, as a desire for “self preservation” means that they were trying to scapegoat the former Post Office chief executive for the scandal.
Samantha Leek KC, delivering the closing statement on behalf of Vennells to the public inquiry on Tuesday, said that as Vennells has become a high profile figure in the scandal others have tried to “point the finger at her”.
“When witnesses have given recent evidence of matters relevant to Ms Vennells without it being supported by contemporaneous documents, this evidence should be approached cautiously,” she told the inquiry.
Related: Paula Vennells ‘devastated’ over missing information about faulty Horizon system
“It is inevitable, having regard to the very human desire for self preservation, that witnesses will now seek to distance themselves from Ms Vennells.”
The public inquiry has heard evidence into one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history, in which more than 900 post office operators were convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting between 1999 and 2015, after faulty Horizon software built by Fujitsu made it appear as if money was missing from branches.
On Tuesday, Leek cited several examples including the testimony given by Jo Swinson, a former postal affairs minister, regarding Vennells alleged knowledge of a crucial email from Simon Clarke, a barrister advising the Post Office, about bugs in the Horizon system.
“[Swinson] has conceded [her allegation] was based on a singe email she had not seen at the time,” said Leek. “That email does not have the weight she now seeks to put on it. In retrospect, she wanted to assume the worst of Ms Vennells and sought to point the finger at her.”
In her lengthy closing submission, Vennells continued to maintain her innocence, saying she remains “devastated” that other executives did not share crucial information about the faulty Horizon IT system.
Lawyers for Vennells, writing on her behalf in closing submissions to the inquiry, said no evidence had emerged to show she “acted in bad faith”.
Vennells has previously publicly named five executives who she said were to blame for the scandal, but her lawyers said that she had “no desire to point the finger at others”.
In the closing submission for the Post Office lawyers argue that the organisation is “unlikely” to learn lessons to prevent another Horizon IT-style miscarriage of justice from criticism of its executives, when the public inquiry into the scandal publishes its findings next year.
Kate Gallafent KC, delivering the Post Office’s closing statement on Tuesday, said that the almost three-year inquiry into the scandal has proved to be a “humbling experience” and all involved have been “equally appalled” by the organisation’s failures.
“No one who has read or listened to the evidence during this inquiry could come to any conclusion other than that the Horizon IT scandal is the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British legal history,” she said. “And that its roots lay in fundamental structural and governance failings.”
She said there was “deep regret” over the reliance of Fujitsu, which built and manages the Horizon system, and a “mindset” that took hold at the Post Office.
This included the dogmatic belief that there were no bugs, errors or defects; a “strong resistance” to countenancing any flaws in Horizon; a mindset that saw it as an “advantage” not to inform ppost office operators of issues identified; and to “positively discourage more widespread dissemination of information”.
The closing submission for the Post Office said the organisation is a “very different place” today and although “it is not perfect … it is firmly committed to learning the lessons from this inquiry and ensuring that nothing like this could ever happen again.”
However, lawyers argue that the Post Office it is more likely to learn lessons from understanding the failure of the “system” that caused the scandal to happen than from criticism of individuals involved.
“Whilst Post Office fully accepts that the inquiry is likely to be critical of a number of individuals (not only from Post Office), it submits that the primary purpose of doing so should be in order to learn the lessons for the future to avoid recurrence,” the submission said.
“It would appear unlikely that the learning of those lessons will come from the criticisms of a particular individual’s actions; rather, the most significant learning of lessons will come from an understanding of the system which permitted or enabled those actions not to be checked, which resulted in relevant failures.”