FORMER Post Office chief Paula Vennells did not want to use the word “bugs” when referencing the faulty Horizon system in an “Orwellian” move to sound “non-emotive," an inquiry heard today.

Susan Crichton, the Post Office’s general counsel before resigning in 2013, giving evidence at the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, agreed that seeking to change the language demonstrated “an element of smoke and mirrors.”

The inquiry heard that in July 2013, the Post Office’s Ms Vennells had asked her “computer literate” husband for an alternative word to describe a computer bug.