Jo Swinson has claimed that former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells said “something to the effect” that some sub-postmasters had “their fingers in the till.”

The Former Liberal Democrat leader said that Vennells told her “although these might seem to be lovely people, clearly some of them are actually just at it”.

Ms Swinson, who was Postal Affairs Minister between 2012 and 2015 also accused Ms Vennells of failing to tell her about the unreliability of a key witness in the prosecution of sub postmasters.

She was referring to the former Fujitsu engineer, Gareth Jenkins, who defended the Horizon system in court cases where sub postmasters were sent to prison.

Ms Swinson said Ms Vennells made the comments to her over the phone in the manner of “taking me into her confidence.”

In 2013, the barrister Simon Clarke KC advised the Post Office that Jenkins was aware of bugs in the Horizon system and said the IT expert should have disclosed the existence of software bugs to the defence.

Ms Swinson told the inquiry that Ms Vennells should have realised that the Clarke memo demanded ‘’urgent attention’’ and said ‘’she never told me’’ about it.

Ms Vennells’ barrister Samantha Leak KC was quick to challenge Jo Swinson about her evidence.

She said that there was no evidence that Ms Vennells was shown the Clarke advice by the Post Office lawyer Susan Crichton or any of the company’s other lawyers.

Ms Swinson responded that she would have expected a chief executive to have asked to see it.

The Former Liberal Democrat leader became emotional whilst giving evidence.

“I’m sorry. I asked lots of questions but that wasn’t enough,” she said to sub postmasters in the room while holding back tears.