Petition to strip ex-Post Office boss of CBE hits 100,000 after ITV drama
A petition demanding ex-Post Office boss Paula Vennells is stripped of her CBE has gained tens of 1000’s of signatures in a single day – reaching over 100,000.
It follows the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office inspecting the IT scandal that led to a whole bunch of staff’ lives being ruined and a few wrongfully convicted. More than 700 department managers had been prosecuted between 1999 and 2015, in what has been described as the most important miscarriage of justice in British authorized historical past.
Ms Vennells – the CEO of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019 – is now going through renewed calls to be stripped of her CBE awarded in 2019 for providers to the organisation. In 2021 she apologised for the “suffering” precipitated after 39 subpostmasters’ convictions had been quashed by the Court of Appeal.
But a petition on 38 Degrees, which was arrange three years and received simply 1,000 backers, now seems to have sky-rocketed within the final 48 hours. The campaigning web site reveals the petition reached the ten,000, 20,000, and 50,000 threshold within the final two days amid renewed publicity over the scandal.
Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Wednesday a Tory minister additionally recommended Ms Vennells ought to think about forfeiting her CBE over the scandal. Kevin Hollinrake, the minister answerable for postal providers, mentioned the difficulty wanted to be “looked at” as he confronted a grilling on compensation to the victims.
He mentioned: “I’ve got to say if I was Paula Vennells – ultimately you’ve got responsibility for what happened, you are the Chief Executive. If I was Paula Vennells I would seriously consider handing that [CBE] back voluntarily”. He added: “But we’ve got an Inquiry… looking at all the evidence. It will report and that should identify who is responsible, in the Post Office or indeed potentially in Fujitsu, and those people wherever possible should be held to account”.
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Pressed on whether or not any particular person whose lies or dishonesty has led to an harmless individual going to jail needs to be prosecuted, he mentioned: “That seems reasonable to me. I’m not a lawyer, I’m not a prosecutor, so there needs to be a legal route to that.” The Mirror revealed final month that Alan Bates, who’s performed by the actor Toby Jones within the ITV drama, turned down an OBE as others proceed to endure so badly.
He mentioned: “The first thing that sprang to my mind while reading the letter was Paula Vennells still had a CBE. I felt so deeply insulted. She presided over a policy of harassing hundreds of innocent people. It’s not just that the Government hasn’t asked her to return it. What’s even worse is that despite knowing the strength of feeling about it, how people have suffered and some cases died on her watch – she doesn’t feel inclined to give it back.”
In September 2020, an impartial public inquiry into the scandal, chaired by retired decide Sir Wyn Williams was established. It grew to become a statutory inquiry in June 2021 and is ongoing.
