LONDON: The former boss of Britain’s Post Office said on Tuesday she will return a royal honour received from Queen Elizabeth II as public anger mounts over a miscarriage of justice scandal.

Ex-CEO Paula Vennells said she had “listened” to the growing clamour to hand back the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) honour given to her in 2018 and decided to relinquish it.

A petition calling for her to be stripped of the CBE, handed out “for services to the Post Office and to charity”, had garnered more than a million signatures by the start of this week.

It follows renewed focus on what has been described as Britain’s biggest ever miscarriage of justice, which saw hundreds of subpostmasters wrongly convicted of theft because of a glitch in accounting software. “I have listened and I confirm that I return my CBE with immediate effect,” Vennells said in a statement.

“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.” Lives were ruined by the false accusations that led to some Post Office branch managers being jailed, going bankrupt, losing their homes and their health.

Four people took their own lives and dozens of those since exonerated died without seeing their names cleared.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2024