to enjoy hearing Paula Vennels being taken apart?

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Is anyone else listening - radio 5 at the moment. Paula Vennels being slowly picked apart by an expert?

Yes, I have just watched the entire day's questioning on Sky News YouTube channel. He's extremely impressive.

As I understand it, Justin Welty was pushing for Vennells to be Bishop of London. However, the Bishop of St Albans whose father was a sub post master vetoed the appointment and explained to Synod why Vennells would be inappropriate

@Northernnature indeed. But she didn't want to know that, did she. There's that damning email where she says she needs to be able to say that no, there was no possibility of remote access. Not that she needs to know if it were possible. But that she needs to be able to say no, and could she have a briefing on why she can say that. Awful.

I think you're right. Ultimately, he did the right thing. People may argue if he did it quickly enough, or forcefully enough, but at the end of he day he did the right thing.

I think we have a huge issue with the culture of organisations from the Police to the Post Office to the NHS. They cover their backsides and cannot delve into issues. They all pretend no issues exist until they are caught out. The Police have lied consistently. Look at Hillsborough. The NHS will be taken to the cleaners over Blood products and experimenting on children and the Post Office covered up its shortcomings.

I suspect PV simply wasn't up to the job that faced her. She didn't want to know the ugly truth so she turned away. As all the others did. I have no doubt there will be future issues arising from
Grenfell regarding Building Regs and lack of building control. Huge numbers of civil servants and others are not good enough.

Yes @laclochette she seemed to be very lazy as well as everything else, just sitting behind a desk getting her lackeys to provide (the "right") answers rather than getting off her arse and questioning fujitsu or talking to the postmasters and finding out what was really going on.

Exactly. Throughout public sector.

And school and education.

and the private sector

One of the best resources to get a clearer view of what's going on is from Nick Wallis. He's an investigative journalist who has dedicated many years to revealing the scandal since he first learned about the Seema Misra case shortly after she'd been sent to prison. He has incredible knowledge and experience about much of what's gone on.

Here's his take on today's evidence:

https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/vennells-day-1-the-five-things-we-learned-today/

This happens a lot in corporate scandals. You have some brash CEO who makes headlines for getting paid four times the (already very comfortable) going rate because they have a "unique skillset", then when it all goes pear-shaped they claim not to have realised that because their company makes biscuits, that makes it part of the food industry, or something similarly obvious.

The last desperate defence of every fraudster comes from the realisation that eye-wateringly extreme incompetence is forgiven more than malice, so they pretend it was the former, in the hope that judge and/or juries are softies.

Also the memory thing: "I don't remember seeing that" when they were part of a 20-long chain of e-mails in which they include winks and laughter emojis, plus comments indicating that the knew exactly what was going on, and that it was serious.

My understanding (but perhaps someone who knows American law could correct me) is that in US corporate law, ignorance is not a defence because the standard is that you "knew or should have known" that biscuits are food, and the two parts of the "or" clause are equivalent.

Nick Wallis is fabulous.

She spent 7 months writing a report and didn't put reflections in because of "time"?

I'm feeling something of the dark triad of personality here.

Nick Wallis is a hero yes. Just donated to his work via his website.

When they make the movie of this I can so see Anna Maxwell Martin playing the part of PV to perfection.

Another 'one to watch' is the DWP. This one's going to need a very big bus indeed.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/22/inquiry-to-begin-into-dwps-treatment-of-ill-and-disabled-people-on-benefits

@nauticant Thank you for the link that is an excellent blog. I made a donation so that people like Nick Wallis can continue to do the right thing.

Shame on her for picking up that bible and sotto voice swearing on it.

@SweetcornFritter Yes! Absolutely. She’d be perfect.

What came across to me on the inquiry was how woefully out of her depth and incompetent Venells was and how she should never have been anywhere near that level of seniority.

I also think that she also knew she was out of her depth and incompetent and rather than admit to this she instead found sacrificial lambs in the form of Postmistresses and Postmasters to use as distraction or for blame. It is this second part that is truly unforgivable and for which she absolutely deserves punishment for.

Fujitsu will be questioned in a month or so, see here

Wednesday 19 June
Richard Christou - former Chief Executive and Executive Chairman of Fujitsu Services Holdings plc
Duncan Tait - former Chief Executive of Fujitsu Services Ltd

Tuesday 25 June, Wednesday 26 June, Thursday 27 June, Friday 28 June
Gareth Jenkins - former Distinguished Engineer at Fujitsu Services Ltd

I haven't spotted Michael Keegan on the list, though, @QueenOfHiraeth

The interesting thing about the Clark advice is that presumably he charged a fee for it and was duly paid. So the PO solicitors are effectively saying they paid for something which they didn't know they'd received. I dunno, if I paid out my employers' money for an invoice for work without checking that the work had actually been done, my employers might just take the view that I wasn't doing my job properly and sack me. Apparently not a problem if you're a PO solicitor, however.

My understanding (but perhaps someone who knows American law could correct me) is that in US corporate law, ignorance is not a defence because the standard is that you "knew or should have known" that biscuits are food, and the two parts of the "or" clause are equivalent.

My understanding is that ignorance of the law is no defence in criminal prosecutions in the UK as to whether or not it is in corporate law I don't know but it should be.

Ah thanks, @MaySheWillStayRestingInMyArmsAgain . And I would like to see fujitsu paying some of the compensation rather than taxpayer.

Re high ups being held personally accountable in UK v. US we saw the same thing during the banking crisis where as I remember several US banking execs went to prison but none did here (eg Fred the Shred). Seeing as how they think they should be paid so much I have no idea why they're not held accountable including where ignorance is cited.

The incompetent uncaring bitch's salary/bonuses was a total of 4.5 million gbp when she was chief executive!!!!

She should be imprisoned for that she has done.

We need to watch for more serious action being pushed for after this. One day and a few harsh words is nothing.

The issue is there's now a pretty corrupt "political class" who basically sit on boards of big organisations for a living and cover each others backs, and are married to each other and have links to politicians and the media. They're all part of this.

They all channel funds to each other and protect each other.

Often the goal of inquiries like this is just playing for time, so the public can have a bit of humiliation, then hope another news story comes up so actual action can be delayed even further.

Wasn't it Tony Blair during Leveson who recommended to Rebekah Brooks to set up an inquiry so that she could go through it, take some nasty questions, then just quietly disappear with her millions as people would have lost stamina or say "it was ages ago"?

I also think the Press has been advised to target Paula Vennells a little bit and make clear they're doing it, so that people "think" the media is pressurising her.

However, also some big media names are clearly protecting Paula Vennells.

We all know the enthusiasm with with the tabloid media gets the names and details of people they shouldn't even be harassing.

They have unflattering photos every day or from drones of people they seriously want to target. They target family members and anyone they may have worked with, and have quotes from family.

The media has a black out on the family of Paula Vennells. She's clearly being protected.

They agreed to a couple of staged shots to make it look like she is being hounded in her home.

The Mail had a photographer sitting outside Nick Cleggs family home for two years to target his wife (and ran multiple stories with these photos).

Gotta love these devout christians - Huw Edwards was another one.