to enjoy hearing Paula Vennels being taken apart?

[Sausagenbacon]

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

I think your spot on
sales people over promising
software people and end users not involved in early conversations.

I can't believe some of the stuff they put in writing 😮

Once the system is in, all the problems start and then the tussle between them begins. For example, the IT company will start demanding extra money to fix the glitches, the organisation will push back, and a disinterested software engineer will be assigned to carry out minimum work just to shut them up.

Usually the higher ups are oblivious to all this.

Yes, my own experience of once working in IT would suggest that this is the case. But this then comes back to the ideology 'public sector bad, private sector good' and a lack of proper investment in public systems.

I am biased I admit; I was once a civil servant and most of the people I worked with were conscientious and honest individuals.

Jason Beer is currently pulling Vennells apart strand by strand over her email exchange with Mark Davies.

He's brilliant!

I've watched him in action several times. I think it will be downhill all they way for her now.

....and just wait until Flora Paige gets stuck in on behalf of victims.

What is the next step after this enquiry? And why weren't the spms offered an enquiry rather than a criminal case?

Is Vennells for real?! These e-mails are damming... surely she must realise she is better off owning her decisions now? Just fess up FFS!!

It is astonishing that nearly a decade after those emails, and long after their formal working relationship was at an end, Vennells was still being advised by Mark Davies, in the context of PR management over her engagement with the Inquiry.

These people just don't think the law and normal moral and ethical standards don't apply to them.

The irony of their criminal lawyer not being able to use IT yet post masters expected to grapple with horizon and the help desk gaslighting is not lost on me.

In touch with him for a private reason of his, Vennells said - was she acting in some sort of vicaring role toward him? Offering pastoral care?? The mind boggles at this point.

PV: 'Unsafe witness' is not a term I would have used

JB: You did use it

She is sooooo busted!

Loved it when he JB sipped water while she floundered like a flappy fish

That was most amusing!

He'd probably borrowed her lawnmower and she wanted it back.

This picture of wide eyed innocence she is projecting is not helping her, it’s just making her look clueless.

It's the only thing she can do to defend herself.

Listening today and PV discussing 'mediation' scheme .
Tracy Felstead imprisoned at 19 years of age , two suicide attempts , life ruined.
Couldn't be included in ' mediation scheme' because she had a criminal conviction for something she hadn't done .
And after the PO had extorted £1200 from her family by indicating if they paid she wouldn't get a custodial sentence.

I wonder if there is the possibility of criminal charges for fraud or extortion against Post Office officials?

I've watched Mr Beer several times now.

First time I saw him I couldn't work him out .... found myself getting slightly irritated because he just letting witnesses ramble on. The second day, he had same demeanor, but now the witness had run through their prepared and rehearsed answers.

The fact that they'd not been challenged too much gave them confidence that it was all going well, and then they suddenly realise they've actually dug themselves into a hole.

The difference is that now they've run out of prepared answers and that the questions just keep coming. That's when he really starts probing.

An absolute genius...

Watch the judge on 22/05/24 - at 2.03.20 on the Horizon you tube inquiry channel.

devastating question at the end of the day. and also thanking everyone in the room for being 'restrained'.

Mr Beer and Chairman Wyn are two of my favourite people ever, now.

Did everyone see when Sir Wyn had to tell the audience in the hearing room to restrain themselves?

It's curious and uncomfortable to watch this as a former POL employee and to read in parallel the analysis that others draw from what they see and hear. I will freely admit that there will inevitably be some 'unconscious bias' on my part because it is so difficult to come to terms with the scenario that Post Office senior managers (and I was one) were inherently evil and involved in some large scale cover up. Equally, I find that I listen to the evidence and understand the explanations being given by the witnesses only to find those picked apart by others - I am left wondering if that is because I don't want to see the alternative, or whether my lived experience within the organisation gives a perspective that is difficult to explain to those on the outside looking in. Equally I may just be short of critical thinking skills which appears to have been a fairly widespread phenomenon in POL. In any case, my take on what we see and hear is very different to that of many others. For avoidance of doubt, I accept completely that these subpostmasters should never have been prosecuted nor financially ruined.

I've said here before that I found Paula to be one of the most sincere and approachable CEOs - who knows, perhaps that was to her detriment, but to me she was a CEO that created an environment that was motivating in which to work. She was the one to really hammer home the fact that Post Office was nothing without its subpostmasters and she was very clear that the culture of the business should switch to seeing them as central to everything that we did, rather than as 'servants' (my word) of the wider organisation. While some see her tears as fake or self pitying, I can imagine that to someone who was as passionate about Post Office as Paula came across to be, that her tears are a sign of genuine regret.

No you're not alone, but then what else can she say, short of indicting herself completely?

It's one of the worst public service scandals so far and she was the head of it with all that implies, so since she's out of rational excuses "I don't remember / didn't understand" is about all that's left