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?

Is there a live feed for this anywhere?

You can see it here:

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

The hearing starts at 9.45 but there'll be a stream shown shortly beforehand.

Thank you

We're going to need another thread @Sausagenbacon. If you're not around I'll start one before this one finishes.

I am fully expecting to hear that immediately after this inquiry Paula Vennells gets quietly admitted to some sort of private clinic.

She is going to have to reconcile herself with realising that her internal view of herself as good, kind, compassionate is entirely at odds with not just what she has done but what she has been shown to have done.

Over the last couple of days she has been carefully, politely filleted. Today she is going to have to properly face the reality of what her self-serving venality inflicted on real people. She won't be able to turn away.

I fully expect her to shed a lot of tears today. I hope someone has got an extra box of tissues ready.

@GoldenMalicious I've been listening to Radio 4 .SPM Noel Thomas was asked if he thought PV was giving a good account .He replied that he had been fighting Post Office Ltd. That over years he had seen the appointment of people who would
'look after the brand '. That they were promoting people who were loyal , not those with ability.
It reminded me of some of your posts where you remarked how viewed sub post masters as important to the brand .
If I remember correctly .

This is an area of expertise for my brother. He reckons they knew about the problems with Horizon at the outset. It would’ve been impossible for them not to. He can’t understand why they just didn’t fix the problems.
This sort of thing happens all the time, but you don’t ignore them.
Now he has watched more of the inquiry he said they psychopathic sc**.

Noel also commented on the vast sums of tax payers money thrown by the PO at the c over up.

Its a horrible/cringy thing to see and JB is fantasic and making his point. Vennells will have been coached and coached on her image and how to answer questions. It seems she has been told to appear thick and out of her depth.

Having said that what on earth has she been doing all day? She seems to know next to nothing about what has been going on. I probed but I was trusing and the classic which seems to be used a lot 'I was lied to/mislead'. Heard Ed Davy try and close things down when he was asked about his role in the PO scandel. He kept repeating it everytime the interviewer asked him something.

I think a lot of public sector senior roles are filled with people like this who are clueless but dont get found out. I met a few over the years in a previous role. I am thinking as well of Vice Chancellors at Universities. They are paid a huge amount and seem like wet weekends with very little idea about normal everyday life.

I agree, it really sticks in my craw that this is how they are 'allowed' to get away with it and they shouldn't be. It should be that claiming I didn't know/understand is an unacceptable defence and therefore they are guilty and accountable. The salary PV was paid should be paid back and she should not receive a pension either, same goes for others and never allowed to have any similar position in a publicly funded organisation again. It's reprehensible, you fail at this level you should have to pay a heavy price.

Quite frankly what exactly was PV being paid for? Her and others couldn't run a booze up in a brewery.

I'm thinking of the victims today . The individuals and their families, children and friends .
In particular those can't face reliving it , those like Tracy Felstead .
First job after school , still in her teens .I know the PO she worked in ,a very busy place with many challenging customers .
https://www.postofficetrial.com/2019/06/post-office-v-mental-health-they-didnt.html

I think Paula Vennells will get away with it. She has played the victim throughout. She has repeatedly portrayed herself as a kind, compassionate person. She uses phrases like 'that's not my style', 'I didn't know'. She loves Christian words like 'reconciliation'. She very much supported the mediation process. This mediation unit had no legal powers. It couldn't overturn convictions etc. She maintained that saying sorry was often enough. She hoped if convictions were overturned 'token' sums ie a couple of thousand, would be enough compensation.
She was begged by Tim McCormack to ring Seema Misra, the pregnant sub postmistress, who was jailed. He provided PV with Seems's phone number but Paula ignored it. Paula's compassion and kindness as a boss only extended to counselling Mark Davies on personal matters.
And yet, she is portraying herself as caring and efficient but not in possession of important truths.
She will get away with it. It is not enough that she is disgraced, I need to see her punished and held accountable, she needs to spend time in prison.
The trouble is, she honestly sees herself as a victim. I think she has a huge ego. She is the Head Girl of the Post Office who turned her face away from internal abuse. I haven't yet seen any genuine remorse. She honestly thinks she is a bit special.
I will be really angry if she gets away with it.

Bush. I agree. I saw when the auidence gasped when she repsonded to a question and the look across her face which seem to be to say 'for goodness sake, I know what I am doing'.

She comes across as thick and clueless which I suspect is what she has been told to do

I think it remarkable how accurate her memory is when she can lay the blame at someone else’s door but as soon as it is something that she did, her response is “i can’t remember anything about that”.

She was the CEO- it was her job to know these things, And if she didn’t, her sheer incompetence does not exonerate her- she SHOULD have known. As the CEO, ultimately the buck stops with her and she knows it. That said, I absolutely believe she did know what was going on (as did most of those at senior levels) and decided the post office’s reputation- and her own- was more important than the carnage the post office was wreaking on the lives of the affected sub-postmasters/mistresses.

Shame on her. Even more so when you consider that she is also a vicar (or similar) and all that entails. Hypocrite of the highest order. I hope she gets a taste of her own medicine- reputational loss, loss of career and financial ruin. She might get the former, but I doubt the latter two will come her way.

I also think Paula Vennells believed that sub postmasters/mistresses were common, working class people and that these type people steal. She had no problem believing that they were all guilty. She went to a posh, independent girls school. She probably never came across people who had to do menial jobs to survive. She was dismissive of their predicament, patronising and lacking in humanity.
I hope at some point she has to confront her own guilt and reflect on why she behaved in such a wicked way. I bet she won't though.

I think PV was incompetent and lives in a bubble of self belief of her innocence. She believes the narrative she is telling.
She has no understanding of the suffering POL has caused .
But she's a sacrificial item ,( I can't bear to compare her to a lamb) . There are many others who are to blame.

The trouble is, she honestly sees herself as a victim. I think she has a huge ego. She is the Head Girl of the Post Office who turned her face away from internal abuse. I haven't yet seen any genuine remorse. She honestly thinks she is a bit special.
i agree @0sm0nthus
Meant to tag Bushtika but failed and can't alter for some reason.

Reconciliation of the soul but not of the accounts.

One of the first things to happen is she should be disqualified as a director: no cosy consultancy for her.

I'm not sure who should be facing criminal charges. There is evidence of extortion: pay up or you will go to prison. I imagine senior members of the internal prosecution teams are now looking worried.

Yeah one of the internal lawyers has refused to give evidence, it was announced yesterday. And apparently another one had to be given a summons to attend

I know someone who is a non-exec director for (some bit of NHS). His description of the interview was that they opened with "We're screwed, what are you going to do about it?"

PV comes across as highly incompetent, like she only got the PO job because she had the right accent, but you all knew that.

Please do nauticant
I must admit I've missed a day and am totally out of the swim

Was it Vennels who claimed that she didnt know the Post Office were investigating the post masters themselves. She thought that it was being done by an external company? Is that right?

All of the hearings, starting in 2022, are here

https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/

I strongly suspect PV will be very shocked at how she is portrayed in the final report. As will others.

I now want to go back to hear Susan’s evidence as I find it shocking she was left sitting outside the Board meeting. What were they thinking.

She allegedly didn't know they conducted their own prosecutions. I assume there was an area of the office building she just knew nothing about. Which is strange for someone who described herself as having a lot of curiosity.