What happened to the executives who ruined so many lives during the Post Office scandal: NICK WALLIS who helped expose the debacle reveals the key figures still living VERY comfortably

Two years ago next week, the ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office caused a national outcry after highlighting what has been called the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history.

The Horizon IT system, adopted by the Post Office in 1999, created false financial shortfalls in Post Office branches, for which sub-postmasters were held liable. Almost 1,000 sub-postmasters were prosecuted and some imprisoned, thousands more were affected, others died waiting for justice. The scandal caused family breakdowns, loss of livelihoods, bankruptcy, and has been linked to at least 13 suicides. The statutory public inquiry into the scandal is due to deliver its final report in 2026. But while hundreds of wrongful convictions have now been quashed and compensation is being paid to claimants, at the time of writing 2,703 have not yet received a full and final settlement.

Meanwhile, what has happened to the executives responsible for sending innocent people to jail and ruining so many lives? As part of the six-year criminal investigation Operation Olympos, which has so far cost close to £10 million, the wheel of justice may finally be turning. It was announced this month that police are considering corporate manslaughter charges, focused on eight suspects and 53 ‘persons of interest’.

However, as an investigative journalist who helped to expose the scandal, I have discovered that, despite the misery they have caused, some significant figures behind the debacle are currently still living rather well.

THE MILLIONAIRE VICAR 

Paula Vennells, 66, was the Post Office CEO. She is married to John Wilson, an ex global vice president at engineering firm ABB, and they have two grown-up sons.

During her time as head of the Post Office, the Reverend Paula Vennells also used to preach at St Owen’s, a beautiful church dating from the 13th century and set in a private country park in the village of Bromham, Bedfordshire. Throughout her Post Office tenure, Vennells denied the organisation had prosecuted innocent people. After Sir Alan Bates’ Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA) successfully exposed that lie, Vennells retired from public life, ceasing clerical duties in 2021. But many parishioners spilling out of St Owen’s Sunday morning service say they see her regularly.

‘We all love her,’ says Pat, a church chorister. ‘She’s been an absolutely first-class preacher and she’s had to give it all up… She’s taken it on the chin. She has lost a lot of weight.’

Vennells (portrayed in the TV drama by Lia Williams) was appointed Post Office CEO in 2012, after five years as a senior executive within the organisation. She took the top job knowing that dozens of former sub-postmasters were claiming their lives had been ruined by the Post Office’s vindictive culture and blind faith in the reliability of its faulty Horizon IT system.

Vennells took a dim view of the sub-postmasters’ campaign, telling colleagues in an email that a TV report about their plight ‘bored’ her. A year into Vennells’ tenure, Martin Griffiths, a sub-postmaster from Cheshire, took his own life after being hounded for mysterious cash discrepancies that kept appearing in his branch accounts.

Griffiths’ tragic death was a key storyline in Mr Bates Vs The Post Office. What the makers of the drama didn’t know was that when news of Griffiths’ suicide reached her, the Reverend Vennells told her colleagues he might have had previous mental-health and family issues. She emailed her staff, instructing them to dig for information.

Chatting to people outside St Owen’s, I found that admiration for Vennells was tempered by one parishioner, who asked to remain anonymous. He told me he had seen Vennells ‘presiding over the odd funeral and thought, “That’s that bloody woman! She needs to be prosecuted. People’s lives were destroyed!”’

Today, Vennells lives in a Grade II-listed farmhouse, estimated to be worth £2 million, just a short drive from St Owen’s church. The property sits in a picturesque landscaped garden boasting several mature trees, a duck pond and two large converted barns. There is no reply when I knock on her door. A neighbour tells me he often sees Vennells when she’s out running or cycling. ‘She always smiles and says, “How are you?”’ he says.

I wonder if this is Vennells putting on a front. ‘I think she was very upset when she was on television,’ he says. ‘When we met her socially, someone said, “I remember you from somewhere…” and you could see the almost panic in her face.’

During her seven-year stint running the government-owned Post Office, Vennells took more than £5 million in salary and bonuses. Yet her engagement with the sub-postmasters’ plight was minimal. In 2018, while the Post Office was spending millions fighting Sir Alan Bates at the High Court during the now famous two-year Bates & Others vs Post Office Ltd litigation, Vennells was looking for a new job. In fact, she narrowly missed out on becoming the first female Bishop of London.

Vennells left the Post Office in 2019 to become Chair of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. As a reward for her ‘success’, that same year she was given a CBE and a seat on the Cabinet Office board. Her CBE was revoked last year, but she remains protected by the church and her wealth.

A few days after I put a note through her door asking for an interview, I received an email from Mishcon de Reya, a London law firm that specialises in reputation management. Mishcon’s partners charge up to £1,240 + VAT per hour for some services. I was told my approach was ‘inappropriate’ and that I should ‘respect’ their client’s privacy. Further interview requests were ignored.

When Vennells gave evidence to the statutory Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry in May 2024, she required a police escort. Before her tearful performance began, the former CEO was given a warning about self-incrimination. This reminded Vennells of her right not to answer a question that might be used against her in a criminal court. It was a sign that she might be of interest to Operation Olympos.

Vennells apologised to sub-postmasters and their families at the inquiry but denied committing any crime while running the Post Office. As an ordained Anglican priest, she remains welcome at St Owen’s. The Bishop of St Albans has resisted demands to defrock her, arguing he ‘cannot simply impute to Ms Vennells all of the failures found to have been committed by the Post Office’. She did not respond to our request for comment.

THE ANGRY ‘AUTOMATON’ 

Angela van den Bogerd, 59, was at the Post Office in various roles for 35 years. She is married with children to Tony van den Bogerd.

The Bryncoch Inn in Neath, South Wales, is the closest pub to van den Bogerd’s new home. There I meet Maria Stephens, who tells me her mother was a local sub-postmaster who fell foul of the Post Office. She knows all about van den Bogerd and wants her held to account. ‘Somebody like that shouldn’t have been in that position and let everyone down. What she has done is disgusting.’

Van den Bogerd was an important figure at the Post Office during the scandal. She made a name for herself in the organisation by successfully closing 2,500 loss-making branches in the 2010s. Colleagues viewed her as an expert on dealing with campaigning sub-postmasters, but she was flawed. A source who knew her described her as ‘completely brainwashed. She simply could not conceive a world where the Post Office was responsible for some of the things the sub-postmasters were complaining about’.

Outside the Post Office environment, van den Bogerd’s loyalty appeared almost deranged. When she gave evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry last year, the former exec’s responses prompted barrister Jason Beer KC to snap, ‘Take a step back from the answer of an automaton!’ Her icy demeanour was writ large in Mr Bates Vs The Post Office (she was played by actress Katherine Kelly), where she was depicted as Paula Vennells’ hatchet woman, with the pair being dubbed ‘the gruesome twosome’.

So far, van den Bogerd’s loyalty has served her well. Earlier this year she took possession of a huge house on the outskirts of Neath. It has four bedrooms, an indoor swimming pool, sauna and snooker room – and she has applied for planning permission to extend. The day I visited, workmen were in the process of re-roofing the rear of the property. Van den Bogerd soon arrived, driving a silver Mercedes with a personalised registration plate. She refused to answer my questions on the scandal and appeared angry about the way she had been treated in the media.

I asked if we’d got her all wrong. ‘Of course you have!’ she barked, claiming she has been demonised because she was ‘the one that went into court and took it on the chin’.

This was a reference to van den Bogerd’s turn as the Post Office’s star witness during the High Court litigation. It did not go well. Mr Justice Fraser said she ‘did not give me frank evidence, and sought to obfuscate matters, and mislead me’.

Despite this mark against her name, in December 2020 the Welsh FA thought van den Bogerd had the right qualities to become their Head of People. She lasted three months. It is not known if she has worked since, but her new home, worth £600,000, enjoys significantly more privacy than her previous property in Neath and, when the renovations are finished, she can put the pool and sauna to good use, hidden away from the sub-postmasters she let down.

Van den Bogerd responded to our request for comment: ‘During my time at the Post Office, I acted to the best of my ability with the knowledge I had at the time. Had I known that the Horizon system was flawed on implementation, my approach would have been different.

‘I approached the issues raised by sub-postmasters through the Mediation Scheme with an open mind, determined to understand what had caused the issues. The Scheme investigations did successfully address some of the issues raised, however there was no evidence found at the time in these cases that losses had been caused by Horizon. After the Scheme closed I set up the Support Services Resolution Team to continue to support sub-postmasters to raise any issues and have them investigated as part of business as usual.’

FUJITSU’S USEFUL IDIOT

Andy Dunks, 61, was part of the Fujitsu IT security team. He is married to Deborah and they have two grown-up sons.

The data used by the Post Office to prosecute sub-postmasters came from Fujitsu. This is the Japanese-owned IT giant that designed, built and operates the Horizon system, which the Post Office still uses. In 2002, loyal recruit Andy Dunks was given the important-sounding job of Cryptographic Key Manager on the Horizon account, within Fujitsu’s security unit.

Dunks stayed for 20 years, helping the Post Office prosecute innocent people by producing witness statements verifying Horizon data as accurate. This worked well for Fujitsu, which would charge the Post Office for producing witness statements and for the days Dunks was required to attend court. Unfortunately, Dunks did not have the requisite skills to properly analyse Horizon data. He didn’t know if it was accurate. He just signed witness statements asserting it was.

Dunks’ role at Fujitsu attracted attention during the Bates & Others vs Post Office Ltd litigation at the High Court in 2019. Under cross-examination he denied producing witness statements that toed a ‘Fujitsu party line’. This was untrue and Dunks was censured by Mr Justice Fraser for attempting to mislead him. Five years later, at the public inquiry, Dunks was given a formal warning against self-incrimination. This put the Fujitsu man on notice that his evidence could be used against him in a criminal prosecution, suggesting that, like Paula Vennells, he might be a person of interest to Operation Olympos.

During his evidence, the well-tanned Dunks struggled to explain how he felt able to sign witness statements that could consign a sub-postmaster to prison, without bothering to verify the assertions they contained.

Although Dunks was never promoted at Fujitsu, he seems to have plenty of cash to spend. His wife has documented several foreign holidays on social media, including an African safari and a US road trip. In one post she refers to him as her ‘partner in crime’.

The Dunks family home is located a short commute from Fujitsu’s UK HQ in Bracknell, Berkshire. On the morning I pay a visit, there are four cars on the drive: an Audi, a Mercedes, a Mini Cooper and a Range Rover, the latter two with personalised plates. Deborah Dunks answers the door in her dressing gown to tell me her husband is not in and won’t be able to talk as ‘he’s been advised not to’.

A neighbour, who did not want to be named, describes Dunks as a ‘spineless yes man’, whose employer was only too pleased to keep him where they needed him. ‘For every sub-postmaster he wrote a statement about,’ he says, ‘how many lives did he wreck? It wasn’t just that one person; he wrecked the whole family. In some cases, a whole community.’

Andy Dunks did not respond to our request for comment.

THE UNION TRAITOR

George Thomson, 64, was General Secretary of the postmasters’ union. He is married with children to Susan, a postmistress.

In 2012, long before the scandal came to a head at the High Court, Sir Alan Bates’ Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance made some headway in persuading the Post Office to investigate concerns about the Horizon IT system. Serving sub-postmasters were invited to participate in a process that Bates thought might interest the postmasters’ union, the National Federation of SubPostmasters (NFSP). Bates wrote a polite note to Thomson, a former Post Office branch manager himself, alerting him to the ‘forthcoming investigation into the Post Office Horizon system, which I believe will benefit your members’.

However, Thomson forwarded Bates’ email to Paula Vennells, adding the note, ‘I have just received this rubbish from the Justice for Subpostmasters. Obviously, I’ll tell him that Horizon is secure and robust and to go away.’

Throughout the first 19 years of Horizon’s existence, it was NFSP unwritten policy to ignore its members’ protests about the mysterious accounting holes appearing in their branch accounts. Thomson’s thinking was simplistic: his sub-postmaster members were self-employed small-business owners. For the majority of them, Horizon seemed to work. If word got out that Horizon was not reliable, public confidence in the Post Office might falter and the value of his members’ businesses would fall.

Thomson’s refusal to accept that Horizon might be fallible led him to allegedly ask one sub-postmaster in need of help if they had a gambling problem. He also told Parliament in 2015 that sub-postmasters with accounting discrepancies often had staff who were thieving. Perversely, Thomson has personal experience of this kind of crime. A cash delivery van waiting outside the Post Office run by Thomson and his wife in Tranent, East Lothian, was robbed by their wayward son, George Jr, in 2007.

Giving evidence to Parliament, Thomson told MPs that Horizon was ‘exceptionally robust’ and that the Post Office ‘had done nothing wrong’ in its defence of the IT system. Thomson declared that Bates’ campaigning sub-postmasters were ‘chancing their luck’ and ‘creating a cottage industry’ that damaged the Post Office’s brand.

Today, Thomson has retired from union politics. He returned to Tranent in 2018 to look after the family business interests, including a busy convenience store housing a Post Office and a licensed café in the town centre. Locally, Thomson is well known. In the nearby Tranent Arms, a regular introduces me to one of Thomson’s childhood friends, former Olympic sprinter (and self-confessed drug cheat) Drew McMaster. I ask him how he thinks Thomson, a union leader, was able to neglect so many of his members while the Post Office was ruining sub-postmasters’ lives.

‘If you’re in a position of power,’ he told me, ‘power corrupts. It’s not just about money. If you’ve got an ego, the power corrupts. He wanted the adulation. He wanted to be the big cheese. People were patting him on the back. He thought he was doing the right thing, but he got screwed behind his back. Listen, he’s not that f**king bright, OK?’

Thomson has still not uttered a word of apology to the sub-postmasters he abandoned. He did not respond to our request for comment.

What’s next: Stephen Clayman, Gold Commander of Operation Olympos at the National Police Chiefs’ Council, has said it could be late 2027 before criminal charges can be brought, as police wait for the inquiry’s final report, which will formally declare who deserves censure for their role in the scandal.

Vennells, van den Bogerd, Dunks and Thomson can rest easy in their comfortable homes. For now.

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