Former Post Office chief executive has admitted that the Post Office’s treatment of bankrupted subpostmaster Lee Castleton was “unforgivable”.
East Yorkshire subpostmaster Mr Castleton was found to have a £25,000 shortfall at his branch in 2004 and was made bankrupt after he lost his legal battle with the Post Office.
The inquiry previously heard that during her time as the organisation’s network director, Ms Vennells “likely” signed off on his £300,000 trial bill.
She told the probe that the fact Mr Castleton was “locked out” of a mediation scheme for those who believed they had been wrongly prosecuted by the Post Office was “unacceptable”.
On Friday, Edward Henry KC, a lawyer representing a number of subpostmasters at the Horizon IT inquiry, said: “You preach compassion, you don’t practice it. For example, with Mr (Lee) Castleton he was even closed out of the mediation process and you know why that was, don’t you?”
The former Post Office chief executive, who is also an ordained Anglican priest in the Church of England, replied: “I’m sorry, I cannot recall the detail of that.
“I wasn’t personally involved in which cases did or didn’t go into the mediation scheme.”
Mr Henry continued: “It so deeply moved you, you said in your statement, ‘it was so shocking’, yet he was locked out of the mediation scheme because… he was an illustrious scalp… that could be used in the GLO (group litigation scheme)?”
Ms Vennells said: “What happened to Mr Castleton is completely unacceptable.
“At the time his case was not taken through the scheme, I personally wasn’t involved in the decision, but the Post Office took the decision based on legal advice.
“It was wrong, Mr Henry, I completely agree with that – and what happened to Mr Castleton is unforgivable.”
Mr Henry went on: “You exercised power with no thought of the consequences of your actions despite those consequences staring you in the face?”
Ms Vennells replied: “The scheme was set up and for the time that I worked on that I believed… that we were doing the right things and clearly that was not always the case.
“We did look at the consequences and although that may have been misunderstood I circulated eight cases including Mr Castleton’s, it was an act of compassion and I was very moved by the content of that.”