Former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells apologises for "all that sub-postmasters and families... have suffered" as her evidence to the Horizon IT inquiry gets under way. Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Mr. Beer, I did want to make a short statement first, if I could.
00:04Absolutely, you go ahead.
00:06I would just like to say, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to do this in person,
00:11how sorry I am for all that our postmasters and their families and others have suffered
00:19as a result of all of the matters that the Inquiries has been looking into for so long.
00:24I followed and listened to all of the human impact statements, and I was very affected by them.
00:34I remember listening to one postmaster, whose name I noted,
00:38who said that he would like somebody to go and stand outside his old post office with him
00:43so he could tell them exactly what he'd been through.
00:46I would do that. I am very, very sorry.
00:50I would also like to repeat the apology, which is in my witness statement,
00:54to Alan Bates, to Ron Warmington and Ian Henderson from Second Sight, and to Lord Arbuthnot.
01:02I, and those I worked with, made their work so much harder, and I am very, very sorry for that.
01:09My third apology is really about today, because I will answer the questions truthfully,
01:15and I am very aware that they will be difficult to listen to, for you and for me,
01:21and I ask your understanding in advance of that. Thank you.