Paula Vennells was told postmasters’ complaints about miscarriages of justice “paled into insignificance” compared with “the bigger social mission of the Post Office”, the inquiry has heard.
Patrick Bourke, the company’s former government affairs and policy director, told the former chief executive she should not allow the “self-indulgence of a number of malcontents” to “pollute our public service mission” ahead of a meeting with MPs.
In 2014, the company was under immense pressure from MPs, postmaster campaigners and the media to come clean about the existence of bugs and defects in the IT system that ran individual branch accounts.
• Paula Vennells gives evidence at the Post Office inquiry – follow live
The company had commissioned a major independent investigation into Horizon two years earlier,
