UK Post Office ex-boss hands back royal honour in fallout of IT scandal

London: A former British Post Office boss at the centre of a controversy of wrongful convictions of hundreds of post office branch managers, including many British Indians, on Tuesday said that she would hand back her royal honour.

Paula Vennells, 65, was CEO of the government-owned Post Office Ltd between 2012-19 at the peak of an IT scandal involving a faulty accounting software named Horizon.

Her role came under renewed scrutiny after a hard-hitting real-life television drama series aired recently and a petition crossed a million signatures demanding a revocation of her Commander of the British Empire (CBE) honour for ‘services to the Post Office and to charity’, conferred in the 2019 New Year’s Honours List.