Post Office: Paula Vennells admits giving incorrect evidence

Mr Beer asked Ms Vennells: "How could you not know?"

Ms Vennells said: "This is a situation that is so complex, it is a question I have asked myself as well.

"I have learned some things that I did not know as a result of the inquiry and I imagine that we will go through some of the detail of that. I wish I had known."

As she apologised to sub-postmasters, campaigners, and to the inquiry itself, people, some of whom were sub-postmasters, remained silent, with a few shaking their heads.

She said she was "very affected" by the human impact statements given by those affected by the scandal.

Ms Vennells also apologised to campaigner Alan Bates, to forensic accountants Second Sight who were sacked by the Post Office after finding bugs in Horizon, and to Lord Arbuthnot, who has also campaigned on the behalf of sub-postmasters.

Mr Beer asked the former Post Office boss if she thought she had been the "unluckiest" chief executive in the UK given that, according to her witness statements, she wasn't given information about Horizon, didn't see certain documents, and had been given assurances about the IT system by Post Office staff.

"I was given much information, and as the inquiry has heard, there was information that I wasn't given, and others didn't receive," she said.

She added that she had been "too trusting" and that she was "disappointed" where information hadn't been shared.