Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells told the final day of the investigation into the Horizon IT scandal that her management team had failed to inform her of key information, but said “she didn't had no desire to point fingers at others.
In a closing statement, Ms Vennells' lawyer cited a number of former colleagues – including Angela van den Bogerd – who she said did not speak to her about relevant facts relating to the scandal.
Deputy postmasters at the inquest greeted Ms Vennells' words with groans and, when the former Anglican priest said she did not want to blame others, with laughter.
More than 900 subpostmasters have been prosecuted for deficits in their accounts caused by bugs in the Horizon computer system.
Ms Vennells' lawyer, Samantha Leek KC, told the inquest her client “cannot, and does not attempt to, hide the fact that while she was chief executive she failed to discover the truth about the extent of Horizon's bugs, errors and flaws.
But “she simply did not get the information that should have been provided to her by her management team, whom she trusted and to whom she delegated responsibilities.”
“Ms Vennells does not know why key information was not passed to her,” she added.
Ms Vennells was chief executive of the Post Office between 2012 and 2019. She was previously the organisation's network director for five years.
His statement is one of the last to be heard as part of the long investigation into the Horizon scandal, opened in September 2020.
It heard from 298 witnesses, received 780 witness statements and processed more than 2.2 million pages of communications.
