As chief executive of the Post Office, Paula Vennells presided over the Horizon scandal
What took her so long? It is a mystery why Paula Vennells, the former chief executive of the Post Office, did not hand back her CBE sooner.
I have been calling for her to surrender the undeserved honour for several years, but she clung to it like a limpet.
It actually took an intervention by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak saying he would strongly support the Honours Forfeiture Committee if it were to consider taking it from her, to part Paula from her gong.
Perhaps she felt that voluntarily giving back the CBE would be seen as an admission of guilt.
But clasping on to it was futile and she should have recognised this much sooner.
The CBE and other honours are marks of public respect and esteem. Vennells long ago forfeited both.
Holding on risked dragging the whole system into disrepute and looked like a slap in the face to the hundreds of innocent postmasters who had their good names dragged into the gutter.
Perhaps she thought she could weather the scandal.
Sir Philip Green held on to his knighthood despite loud calls for its removal. This, though, was a very different scenario and a fair outcome, as he had made a very large payment to BHS pensioners.
Fred Goodwin is the only prominent CEO to have forfeited a major honour in recent memory, in his case a knighthood.
James Crosby, the former boss of HBOS, gave up his knighthood of his own volition, and never came in for the same level of vilification as his fellow crisis-era banker Goodwin.
The Horizon scandal which saw more than 700 subpostmasters prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 was retold this week in hit ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office
Back to Vennells, and it seems absurd that she was given the award in the first place. This was, after all, in 2019, when there was plenty of reason to be uneasy about Horizon.
Unlike the postmasters who lost their reputations, livelihoods, good names and more, she is cushioned by wealth
After quitting the Post Office, she seemed in no hurry to step down from her other lucrative roles, such as her directorships of retailers Dunelm and Morrisons.
No doubt losing the CBE will sting, but it is a relatively light penalty.
Unlike the postmasters who lost their reputations, livelihoods, good names and more, she is cushioned by wealth, millions of it made at the Post Office.
I am not a Christian like Paula Vennells but I do believe everyone is capable of redemption.
The latest New Years Honours included a knighthood for Gerald Ronson. He was jailed in 1990 for his role in the Guinness affair, but worked diligently for decades to regain his standing and he became one of the country’s biggest philanthropists.
For Vennells to give up her CBE is a symbolic gesture. An important symbol, but a token nonetheless. At best, it is only a small start to any form of genuine restitution.
