Paula Vennels says she’ll hand back CBE

[Andthereyougo]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67925304

Sorry about gobbledegook title. Phone is playing up.

Fujitsu still supply IT to government departments… she’s a dirty snake but these fuckwits built it and still being given taxpayer cash.

Yup, this company needs to stump up the cash to pay compensation, NOT the taxpayers.

https://www.onepostoffice.co.uk/secure/latest-news/our-people/one-thing-ive-learned/

PO will have to take action against Fujitsu if the contract was between the two companies

Just watched the Panorama just on. It is chilling. Just normal people trying to earn a living.

I'm with everyone who thinks that Vennels should have been stripped of her CBE. There were newspaper reports and a documentary about this, within the last couple of years, where it was reported that she was told about the problems and she ordered her staff to keep o prosecuting.

Ed Davey worked for a law firm, which was involved in some of the cases:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12944801/ed-davey-post-office-horizon-scandal-links-lawyers.html

The Liberal Democrat leader has come under fire over what he knew about the IT system that led to the largest miscarriage of justice in UK history. The former postal affairs minister in the Coalition government was warned by campaigning sub-postmaster Alan Bates in 2010 that there were 'flaws' in the system.

There were also questions about the former Cabinet minister's work for City firm Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) from 2015, two years before 500 postmasters launched group litigation against their employer. In 2019, the company became the Post Office's adviser in its defence against the legal action and continued to work for them until last year.

I'd like to see both of them imprisoned, if their culpability can be proved.

She needs to hand back her £2m bonus too 🤬

Do you think that other postoffice ministers should go to jail? or just Ed Davey?

What about Peter Lilley who first signed off Horizon in 1994/95 ? He is now a Tory Grandee and lord, should he hand back his peerage?

I say YES and ALL the other ministers (lab/con/ld) who ignored, not only Bates but numerous MPs, news articles and investigative journalists inc R4, Panorama etc have done over the years.

I really do hate the politicisation of this, target an opposition minister or one or two individuals so the rest all get off scot free.

I know right?! Can you imagine people of the church behaving appallingly and immorally? It’s completely and utterly unheard of in our social history.

I know!! Amazing

I agree. I almost had a row with Dh yesterday because he was saying, 'Well we don't know what Paula Vennells knew. She could have been misinformed." Actually we do know that she dismissed the forensic accounts who flagged up loads of faults in the system because it was not what the PO's legal team wanted to hear. So she turned her back on expert opinion. And she was involved enough, first hand with Bates to be capable of judging that these were not criminal people. It's her job as CEO to ensure she isn't misinformed. She was paid hundreds of thousands a year to be capable of due diligence at the top of a huge organisation.

Davey, likewise, needs to be fully informed. That's his responsibility.

At very least that should go into the fund towards repaying the subpostmasters and their families money that was extorted from them by the PO. Because it was extortion.

At very least that should go into the fund towards repaying the subpostmasters and their families money that was extorted from them by the PO. Because it was extortion.

Yes. It'd be a start.
Not that the money can really put things right for the victims. And some of the wider effects will never be recovered from. How many communities have lost their post office and often also their village shop because their SPM was falsely accused?

jasflowers 11/01/2024 09:31

In 1994, Lilley wasn't part of an organisation, which was knowingly sending innocent people to prison for crimes which didn't exist.

Vennells and Davey certainly were complicit, Davey worked on legal cases involving postmasters and Vennells, if reports are true, was told and did know and ordered staff to keep prosecuting, to maintain the reputation of the PO.

It's really bad that it took for a TV show to put the Po scandal firmly in the spotlight. These poor people spent years being tormented by the Po and the establishment and now govt making noises about a Knighthood, I hope he refuses it.

I hope this isn't all hot air after the drama and a few months down the line there will be a withdrawal of all this so called 'good will' from the government. It's pathetic but it's how they work.

@Darklane, no!!.. Surley not!

Interesting! Things are never as bad as they seem? They are in this case Paula, if anything, worse!

I remember watching the Panorama episode a while ago (as an aside, does anyone know why Alan Bates didn’t feature in that?) But I’m ashamed to say it’s taken watching the ITV drama to really make me realise the true scale of how totally awful this was for those involved and watching the panorama again after watching the drama, it brought me to tears. Shows the power of drama, we need more important issues to be highlighted in this way.

Today in the Times

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a27678e1-1e85-4eeb-97df-593107575803?shareToken=3262f4224812b21ac9b843d23411b46f

It's so complicated and our brains naturally switch off if people are already tarnished as guilty.

Who is the mp in the series.

Erroll interesting.

What a bizzare lady. She took assurances that horizon was working at face value. Her apology still bears no culpability and blames horizon.
She had no understanding of the context of the powers the po had.
No understanding of the bizzare anomaly that suddenly hundreds of sub posters were suddenly stealing vast amounts of money and with this supposed fail safe horizon in place.. What gall! The little sub post masters suddenly deciding to rob under the gaze of amazing horizon?

Vennels own brain couldn't compute this? She couldn't see how the various steps were all leading to utter failure of Justice for these people. They couldn't win.

How can such a supposedly intelligent person think along these lines?
I genuinely don't get it.

Good. Shame she was forced to.

If there's a hell. She's going!

@ErrolTheDragon thanks for the link to that article. I really don’t feel comfortable with all the blame going on her. She sounds like someone who towed the company line to the extreme and was so afraid to consider that the company she was in charge of was corrupt that she was in total denial and would believe anything that contradicted that view. She was complicit but I don’t think she was entirely responsible, so why is all the anger directed at her. Who was in charge when the post office was paying and incentivising the investigators to prosecute as many sub-pms as possible. And who knew that the figures in horizon could be alerted via a back door but kept that secret all those years while lives were being destroyed. They are the truly evil people. Paula is merely a sycophantic post office puppet in my opinion who desperately buried her head in the sand so she could enjoy her money and prestigious career.

Paula is merely a sycophantic post office puppet in my opinion who desperately buried her head in the sand so she could enjoy her money and prestigious career

While people were having their lives and livelihoods destroyed. And you think that she doesn't bear ANY responsibility for that while taking the money to be the person where the buck stops?

No bloody surprise the church is sticking up for her, either.

Where did I say she doesn’t bear any responsibility? If I implied that then it wasn’t intentional. I just think she’s the one talking all the blame at the moment when there are more evil people behind the scenes getting away with it while all the attention is on her. I just hope they get uncovered.