'I was too trusting': Ex-Post Office boss apologizes after widespread miscarriage of justice in Britain

LONDON — The former chief executive of Britain's Post Office, Paula Vennells, on Wednesday apologized for the scandal that led to the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters who ran the institution's local branches.

The Post Office took 700 people to court between 1999 and 2015 based on faulty evidence resulting from central I.T. system failures. Another 283 people were prosecuted by other bodies, based on the errors of the same system. More than 200 of the total were sent to prison and in some cases, victims died before they were exonerated.

"I would just like to say... how sorry I am for all that sub-postmasters and their families and others have suffered, as a result of all of the matters that the inquiry has been looking into for so long," Vennells said on Wednesday during a government inquiry hearing.

Her first public comments in nearly a decade came at the start of a three-day testimony, in which Vennells is being questioned by lawyers as part of a wider government inquiry. Questions remain over what Vennells and other executives knew, all while the Post Office continued to push for sub-postmaster prosecutions. Focus is also on the myriad of issues with accounting software that were made by Japanese firm Fujitsu.

At one point, Vennells broke down in tears while discussing the case of Martin Griffiths, who took his own life while being pursued by the Post Office for an alleged shortfall of £60,000 ($76,314).

As the Post Office is a state-owned company, questions have also been raised about the government's role in the scandal, which has been described as one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in British history.

Vennells joined at a time when the Post Office was losing significant amounts of money