Paula Vennells will today appear before the Post Office Inquiry.
The shamed former boss is expected to spend three days giving evidence at the inquiry into the scandal that saw hundreds of sub-post masters wrongly accused of theft and fraud due to a fault with the Horizon accounting system.
Vennells was managing director of the Post Office from 2010 to 2012, and went on to serve as chief executive from 2012 to 2019.
The ordained priest has two sons with husband John, who she met at Bradford University dinghy club. Now retired, he was formerly global vice-president at the international engineering firm ABB. They married in 1994 and are believed to live near Bedford.
Vennells served as chief executive from 2012 to 2019 (BBC)Last month, the long-running inquiry heard how Vennells asked her 'computer literate' husband to help her find another word for 'bugs' when describing problems with the IT system.
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Wanting to instead find a 'non-emotive word for computer bugs, glitches, defects that happen as a matter of course', Vennells turned to her engineer husband and passed on his advice to then communications chief Mark Davies.
She wrote: "My engineer/computer literate husband sent the following reply to the question: 'What is a non-emotive word for computer bugs, glitches, defects that happen as a matter of course?
"Answer: 'Exception or anomaly. You can also say conditional Davies exception/anomaly which only manifests itself under unforeseen circumstances xx'."
More than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted due to the faulty Horizon system (UNPIXS ARCHIVE)Showing approval, Davies, who served as the Post Office's communications director from 2012 to 2019, responded: "I like exception v much." [sic]
This emailed conversation was discussed last month when Susan Crichton, who resigned as the Post Office's general counsel in 2013, was giving evidence at the Inquiry.
Slamming the language used as 'absolutely Orwellian', Counsel to the inquiry Julian Blake asked Crichton whether she believed the exchange to be an example of 'smoke and mirrors'. She replied: "It certainly reads in that way, yes."
Although Crichton stated that she could not recall a discussion about language, the inquiry was shown an email dated July 2013 in which she had noted that it 'wasn't a good idea to mention bugs'. When asked whether this demonstrated that changing the wording of 'bugs' was indeed at the 'forefront' of her mind, Crichton responded: "That's certainly what this email says, yes."
During this week's three-day hearing, Paula, 65, will be grilled about what exactly the Post Office knew about problems with Horizon and when. As dramatised in Mr Bates vs The Post Office, between the years 1999 and 2015, more than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted as the faulty accounting software made it look as though they were swindling cash.
Ahead of the hearing, former subpostmistress Jo Hamilton, played by Monica Dolan in the hit ITV drama, warned Vennells that she was 'heading into the corner where there's no way out'. Jo, who was falsely accused of stealing £36,000 from her branch in South Warnborough, Hampshire, in 2006, emphasised that campaigners just want the truth, stating that, in her position, she would 'just put my hands up' and say 'I'm really sorry and this is what happened'.
The 66-year-old continued: "We just want the truth. You'd have thought a bit of her humanity would have come out and she should have done the right thing. I don't know - is she feeble? Is she really a feeble person? Was she over-promoted?
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"The whole thing I find bizarre. I'm really intrigued to know what she's going to come out with. I'm not expecting anything, so anything she gives us will be a bonus - but I would love her just to tell the truth."
The Mirror has reached out to Paula Vennells' legal representatives for comment.
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