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Original poster

Paula Vennells was back in Phase 5/6 of the Post Office Inquiry and now we're at Phase 7 - thread 5

523 replies

nauticant · 23/09/2024 22:34

A continuation of this thread about the Post Office Inquiry:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5105378-paula-vennells-is-history-but-now-at-the-post-office-inquiry-is-fujitsu-distinguished-engineer-gareth-jenkins-thread-4

The Inquiry is at Phase 7 which is about how things stand now and looking to the future. Here's the timetable:

https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/phase-7-timetable

When the hearings are going on, live-streaming can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/@postofficehorizonitinquiry947/featured

All of the previous hearings can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/@postofficehorizonitinquiry947/videos

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Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 11:30

According to Read he knew nothing about the bonuses or the attempt to cover this up by those around him in 2021.

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Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 11:28

There it is. The recommendation at the top of Post Office in 2021 that discussion about this matter needed to be closed down.

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Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 11:25

A telling discussion. Read is being asked about investigators getting bonuses based on numbers of successful prosecutions and amounts of money "recovered". This has been a point of interest since at least 2021, and there has been awareness within Post Office that more needs to be uncovered in this matter. This has gone nowhere. Clearly this is something Post Office knew it needed to remain ignorant about.

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minou123 · 09/10/2024 11:19

I'm 30 mins behind. But so far Nick didn't know anything prior to taking up the post.

I'm exaggerating a little, but essentially he wasn't briefed by anyone. But surely all he needed to do was look at the press in 2019, Private Eye, Nick Wallis, Computer Weekly were all covering the GLO.

Then Nick could have questioned the Senior Execs and asked for an explanation to why his brief was different to the press reports.

Or am I being simple?

Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 11:18

I thought he was doing OK but it turns out that Read's fluency in talking about the chaos he walked in to in 2019 has not carried through to this current section about the culture at Post Office in 2024 and why some of the rotten stuff of the past hasn't changed.

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Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 11:04

Once people were getting a sense of the mess at Post Office, the government were looking to provide redress to subpostmasters and the civil service wanted to focus on the financials of the business and not really solve the subpostmaster problem

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Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 10:57

This would be gripping enough but Beer doing the cross-examination is the cherry on top.

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Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 10:55

In particular, Parker believed that the litigation wasn't the PR risk to Post Office that the government believed it to be.

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Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 10:52

More good grief. Read met with the chairman Tim Parker in September 2019 and Parker hand-waved away the significance of the litigation Post Office had just lost, minimising its impact to a negligent degree.

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minou123 · 09/10/2024 10:48

Morning, just started watching, but I'll be on/off today.

Yay for Beer being back.

Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 10:47

Read does have an explanation for why he joined in the denial. He'd literally just walked through the door and was relying on people in the grip of self-serving delusions (that's my version).

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Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 10:44

Good grief. When the Horizon Issues Judgment was handed down in late 2019 the executive and the Board were "nothing to see here, let's carry on as before". In Read's telling, massive denial of the mess Post Office was in. The only thing that mattered was "how do we reduce costs of running the business?"

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Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 10:40

Another example of the CEO being fed information by the General Counsel, in this case Ben Foat, meaning the CEO didn't have a true picture of what had gone on.

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Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 10:37

An interesting detail. According to Read, the last prosecution of a subpostmaster was initiated in 2013.

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Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 10:28

Read was recruited on the basis of a 7 page Position Specification that didn't mention Horizon, or the complexity of its replacement, or the civil litigation, or the Common Issues Judgment that had just been handed down. Of course, Read could have learned about some of this independently but there was a lack of candour.

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dewfirst · 09/10/2024 10:22

Just trying to catch up, thankyou Nauticant and minou123 for your continuing commentaries.
So glad it’s Beer v Read.
I hope he shreds him.
Self satisfied twonk.

Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 10:15

Straight into it. Read has made 4 witness statements, over 300 pages in total, with 1,2, and 4 being corporate witness statements and 3 being a personal one. Beer had him clarify that the corporate witness statements had been subject to approval by others. Hmmm.

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Original poster
nauticant · 09/10/2024 10:08

As a bonus, today's a Beer day!

However, the day opened with the announcement of the death of one of the core participant subpostmasters, one of the 555, who died before she was able to receive the additional compensation she was entitled to receive.

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minou123 · 08/10/2024 18:57

nauticant · 08/10/2024 18:52

That shows how much of this is open to interpretation. Maybe we're both partially right and SWW was giving a "plague on both your houses" message.

A plague on both your houses

😂

I'm.gpimg to use that at work tomorrow.

Original poster
nauticant · 08/10/2024 18:52

That shows how much of this is open to interpretation. Maybe we're both partially right and SWW was giving a "plague on both your houses" message.

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minou123 · 08/10/2024 17:51

nauticant · 08/10/2024 16:12

I'm about 10 minutes behind but did just watch an interesting intervention by Sir Wyn Williams. It was about the correspondence between Nick Read and Fujitsu with the latter suggesting that they will no longer be providing Horizon-related evidence to support prosecutions. SWW's view seems to be that this would still be the police investigating a potential crime and in such circumstances in general it would be surprising for any involved party to refuse to provide relevant information they hold to the police. This can be interpreted as SWW suggesting that Fujitsu were being performative in adopting a position that, ultimately, they probably wouldn't maintain.

That's interesting, because I interpreted it a little differently. I thought SWW was suggesting POL were being performative.

The only reason I say that is, SWW asked Rachel "Kardashian" Scarrabelotti a similar question.
SWW determined the following os the current process:
..1 POL investigate a SPMR for stealing and gather the evidence
..2 the POL Board have to then review the evidence and determine if they now want to report it to the police
..3 Police investigate and ask POL to disclose/give any information that will help with thier investigation.
..4 the POL Boatd decide what information and documents to share with the police.

SWW seemed a bit perturbed about why the Board would decide what info/docs would be shared with police. His point seemed to be why does the Board need to decide. Could it be the POL Lawyers and POL investigators can't be trusted to share all relevant documents with the police?

I don't know. I may be reading too much into this.

I may be stuck on POL history of non-disclosure during criminal trials and non-disclosure during the Inquiry.

Original poster
nauticant · 08/10/2024 16:12

I'm about 10 minutes behind but did just watch an interesting intervention by Sir Wyn Williams. It was about the correspondence between Nick Read and Fujitsu with the latter suggesting that they will no longer be providing Horizon-related evidence to support prosecutions. SWW's view seems to be that this would still be the police investigating a potential crime and in such circumstances in general it would be surprising for any involved party to refuse to provide relevant information they hold to the police. This can be interpreted as SWW suggesting that Fujitsu were being performative in adopting a position that, ultimately, they probably wouldn't maintain.

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minou123 · 08/10/2024 15:01

It is a little boring. He is saying what he is planning to do in the future.
Although, he used the term "induction package" instead of the stupid "onboarding" - so I like him 😂

Tomorrow, Thursday and Friday will.be the main course.

Original poster
nauticant · 08/10/2024 14:57

This afternoon session is somewhat of an unappetising starter in advance of the main course tomorrow.

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minou123 · 08/10/2024 14:41

Next is Nigel Railton, the current interim chair.

Hevperhaps hasn't been told the truth that the Horizon system is still a pile of poo poo. He was under the impression it is now working fine.