Rishi Sunak would “strongly support” probing whether the Post Office's former CEO should be stripped of her CBE over the Horizon scandal, Downing Street said on Monday.
The Prime Minister's intervention will dramatically escalate the possibility that Paula Vennells could lose her gong.
Mr Sunak's official spokesman said he would strongly support Whitehall’s Forfeiture Committee "if they were to choose to investigate".
Ex-Post Office chief Ms Vennells came under unprecedented pressure on Monday to hand back her CBE over the Horizon computer scandal as the nation reeled in revulsion at the treatment of sub-postmasters wrongly prosecuted for fraud.
A petition calling for her to be stripped of her honour reached more than 1.1 million by mid morning ahead of an emergency debate in Parliament on the shocking revelations in what has been described as the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history.
It is understood that she could not hand it back of her own volition but it could be withdrawn by the Forfeiture Committee.
It could launch a probe into whether to take such a step if it receives a request to do so and has some set criteria for such decisions.
Number 10 also stressed that the taxpayer alone should not have to pick up “the tab” for compensation for hundreds of sub-postmasters and postmistresses wrongly prosecuted for fraud.
More than 700 branch managers were given criminal convictions after faulty Fujitsu accounting software made it appear as though money was missing from their branches.
The petition took off after ITV aired a harrowing drama about the scandal, Mr Bates vs The Post Office starring Toby Jones. It is believed to have prompted 50 new potential victims to approach lawyers to clear their names and get compensation.
Justice Secretary Alex Chalk and Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake, who were meeting today, were being urged to speed up the process for giving justice to the hundreds of victims, many of whom saw their livelihoods destroyed, and in four cases took their own lives.
Tory peer Lord Arbuthnot, who played a key role as an MP in exposing the scandal, called for the huge number of wrongful prosecutions to be dealt with in a “mass way”.
He told Sky News: “One of the greatest problems is that there have been between 700 and 900 convictions of sub-postmasters and only 93 have been overturned. That is a pathetically small number. Parliament has got to step in and say that Post Office convictions are not safe.”
Professor Chris Hodges, chair of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board, said Parliament should pass a “simple act” to clear all of the sub-postmasters and postmistresses convicted based on evidence of the flawed computer system.
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has granted an urgent question for a debate on the scandal, which is being investigated by Scotland Yard.
He could allow moves to hold an emergency debate under Standing Order 24, which could take place tomorrow. Labour MP Kevan Jones and Tory Sir David Davis are pushing for a debate.
Former Cabinet minister Sir David said: “This is such a big issue, there are now tens of millions of people who care about this.”
Wrongfully-convicted sub-postmistress Janet Skinner said of Ms Vennells’ CBE: “If she had any decency she would just hand it back.”
North Durham MP Mr Jones said: “Vennells has been the one who is the most high profile. But if you look through this scandal there is a whole number of individuals who have questions to answer.”
As well as other Post Office executives, Fujitsu bosses are in the firing line, as well as possibly some of the solicitors who prosecuted sub-postmasters and postmistresses, if it were to turn out that they knew the Horizon computer may be to blame. Ex-ministers, including Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, are also in the spotlight, with questions over whether they should have asked more questions about the cases.
Ms Vennells, who left the Post Office with a CBE for services to it as well as charity and a £389,000 bonus, has said she was “truly sorry” for the “suffering” caused to sub-postmasters. In 2021 she stepped back from her church duties as an associate minister in the Diocese of St Albans after 39 former Post Office workers had their convictions overturned by the Court of Appeal.
Former sub-postmaster Lee Castleton, from Bridlington, East Yorkshire, who is a victim of the scandal and was bankrupted, told Times Radio his family’s lives were “torn apart. “We were ostracised in Bridlington. We were abused in the streets. Our daughter was bullied. She was on the school bus and spat on by a young boy because [they thought] her father was a thief, and he’d take money from old people,” he said.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission has described the Horizon scandal as “the most widespread miscarriage of justice” it has ever seen.
