Paula Vennells – who has been thrown back into the spotlight after ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office – was shortlisted to be Bishop of London in 2017, according to reports. The ex-Post Office boss is an ordained Anglican priest but does not hold a senior position in the Church of England.
The Archbishop of Canterbury was said to have supported her application, according to the BBC. Following fallout from the ITV show that detailed the wrongful prosecution of more than 700 Post Office branch managers, Ms Vennells has since said she would return her CBE.
She ran the Post Office when faulty new software led to money inaccuracies. Staff were accused of fraud and theft, with some ending up in prison following the convictions.
Ms Vennells has faced questions since the scandal was first brought to light, with some describing it as the biggest miscarriage of justice ever seen in the UK.
According to sources, Ms Vennells was interviewed for the role of Bishop of London – the third most senior role in the Church of England.
But despite being shortlisted in the top three, she did not secure the position. At the time, she was still chief executive of the Post Office before stepping down from her role in 2019.
That same year, she was awarded a CBE for services to the Post Office and to charity, which she has now volunteered to return after a petition surpassed one million signatures this week demanding the honour be stripped.
On Tuesday Ms Vennells said in a statement she was returning her CBE with “immediate effect”.
“I am truly sorry for the devastation caused to the sub-postmasters and their families, whose lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted as a result of the Horizon system,” she said.
A public inquiry into the scandal is taking place which she has insisted she will cooperate on. Ms Vennells was ordained in the Church of England in 2005.
She stepped back from her role as an associate minister in the St Albans diocese in 2021 amid intensifying controversy about her Post Office career.
Sarah Mullally, who was England’s chief nursing officer before she became a priest, took the role of the first female Bishop of London in December 2017 instead.
A spokesperson for the Church of England said: “We never make any comment on who is a candidate, or not, in what is a confidential discernment process.”
Ms Vennells started out her career in the Post Office as a group network director, before becoming managing director in 2010 and eventually chief executive in 2012.
She was praised for increasing the Post Office’s profits during her time there, before taking over as chair of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS trust in April 2019. She later stepped down.
