Buck-passing and tears: evidence so far from the Post Office inquiry witnesses

Over 1,000 days since the inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal first opened in 2022, it is set to hear its closing arguments next week.

- Guardian staff

The chair, Sir Wyn Williams, and his team will then go away to distil the millions of pages of oral and written testimony from more than 5,000 witnesses.

The final report and its recommendations are expected to be published in 2025, with the hope that they can help prevent a repeat of the mistakes that led to hundreds of wrongful convictions. In one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history, more than 900 sub-postmasters were convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting between 1999 and 2015, after faulty Horizon software built by Fujitsu made it appear as if money was missing from branches.

This week police said they had identified dozens of persons of interest in their investigation and had recruited an extra 100 officers to look into the actions of executives, legal teams and civil servants.

Here's a quick reminder of what we have learned so far from some key figures.

Paula Vennells (below)

The most dramatic evidence came from former Post Office chief executive Vennells, who repeatedly cried as she claimed she had been misled by her staff over the safety of the prosecutions of branch operators.