Watch as Paula Vennells gives evidence at Post Office Horizon IT inquiry

Watch as Paula Vennells gives evidence on her second day at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry on Thursday (23 May).

The former Post Office chief executive was accused of crying “crocodile tears” during her first day at the hearing on Wednesday and admitted evidence she gave to MPs was wrong.

Struggling to answer questions in the first of three days of testimony, Ms Vennells insisted she did not know until 2012 that the Post Office conducted its own private criminal investigations, despite joining the organisation in 2007.

She broke down in tears when asked about her response to the death of former subpostmaster Martin Griffiths, who died following an attempted suicide in 2013, and there were long pauses before she replied to some points put to her.

More than 700 subpostmasters were wrongly prosecuted and handed criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 as a result of Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon IT system – which made it appear as though money was missing at their branches.