Paula Vennels being questioned at the Post Office Inquiry, followed by others - thread 2

[nauticant]

A continuation of the discussion started by@Sausagenbaconhere:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5080262-to-enjoy-hearing-paula-vennels-being-taken-apart

Paula Vennells' 3 days of evidence ends today but there are more hearings coming up and we can discuss those too.

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

I also think it is likely.

The only even half comparable thing I can think of is the France Telecom trial which did lead to (short) prison sentences.
I think this is an order of magnitude worse, and believe several people both in the post office and Fujitsu need prison sentences, partially as a deterrent to other employers.

It truly is shameful what they did and continue to do. I would be shocked to the core to think any friend or relative of mine could behave with so little integrity whilst thinking anything good of themselves.

They were cavalier about sending people to prison. And yet, their expectations as to how they themselves should be treated by the law show them to be rank hypocrites- on top of all their other failings.

If it happened like the itv drama, the postie turned up to collect parcel bags and was taking one out to his van and coming back for another so the door hasn't shut 100 percent and locked behind him as he was (as he usually had been) due to be back in all of a minute. Unfortunately at that same time the armed robbers burst in and got in to the area that should have been secure and locked after damaging Lees hand when he tried to stop them getting in.

@Mulloffuckintyre It seems wild doesn't it. The answer is actually in the clause of the contract that was focused on at one point today. It said that postmasters were directly accountable for any losses incurred through their failure to follow correct security protocol. I guess I can imagine situations where someone is reckless in some way that leads to a robbery where that would make sense. For example if you manage a branch of Tesco and you don't bother locking up, and it gets robbed, yes, you didn't yourself rob it, but you are highly responsible for what happened due to your dereliction of duty. What happened here feels much less clear and it is further proof of the Post Office's ruthlessly black and white approach to its heartless treatment of postmasters.

I agree that Mr Beer is incomparable but Mr Moloney comes a very close second. He was excellent today in demonstrating that PV’s much-vaunted saintliness was so much hogwash. No wonder there was audible protest in the tribunal. It must have been sickening for those present to hear her vile email read out.

Edward Henry said:

There were so many forks in the road, but you always took the wrong path didn't you?

Ouch!

Vennels memory appears to be almost as shit as Sturgeons, which is saying something.

Spot on

The sort of person who is all sweetness and light to the people she thinks are worth the effort - but absolutely vicious to minions when there are no witnesses.

Bet anybody unfortunate enough to have her as a manager throughout her climbing of the greasy pole has got some stories to tell of how she was when nobody else was around to see her show her true self.

A creepy crawly sort of person, obsequious in the presence of those higher up the echelons, but totally oppressive when dealing with those she considers beneath her, and willing to throw any colleagues under the bus, because she’s too cowardly to admit her own part in this and desperate to hang onto her good girl facade.

If she is as devout as she likes to portray herself as, she should reacquaint herself with Matthew, Chapter 6, verse 5.

Thank you so much to all the posters on this thread. It has been great to share opinions and info while watching live. I was outraged and not bored by all the answers given by Vennells (see what I did there?).
This has helped set the scandal in context and I am now much better informed.

He was totally the smiling assassin!

She thought she had got through the hard bits ... but the morning's aggressive questioners were just the warm up act. He was softly spoken, gentle and she started to relax and think about her weekend ... then wham - he sprung the trap.

He got her to agree that she claimed to "not recall" certain things (that he had detailed evidence of). Altering the prospectus to remove details of business threats might be a serious crime - yet she was proud of it and bragged about it in her achievements of the year.

Then there is her humblebrag that she was always kind and calm in her communications - then the trap was set for the e-mails where she was terse/rude to a more junior employee but grovelling when she accidently sent it to a more senior one, then she sent that e.mail slagging off a convicted postmistress

I’m going to say something unhelpful and crass so I’m sorry… but she always has her mouth hanging open. With much blinking.

PV has made sure to portray herself as incompetent, she has been paid a huge amount of money by taxpayers to do a job which she is saying she was totally incapable of doing, therefore in my view she should be charged with obtaining money by deception. Won't happen I know but it should.

My impression of Vennells is that she’s self-preserving, disingenuous and yet believes she is a moral person. She’s taking pains to present herself as an ignorant bystander and a victim. It’s extraordinary.

I doubt that anyone who could have had the charges overturned will be criminally charged. Just going on only one person, the Sheffield Wednesday club secretary, was convicted for the Hillsborough disaster. Huw Edwards has been massively protected, as have the BBC executives who got anyone blacklisted who bad mouthed Saville. It's all gone quiet re the hospital mangers of Lucy Letby.

It WILL go to court, most likely a private prosecution by A Bates. He can easily find raise and I'm sure after this week even the poorest will raid their piggy banks and hand over £1.

I doubt however that she will go to jail.

For a few reasons- she's be late 60s possibly by then (unless they hurry up.)

The argument would be no purpose would be served by prison. (she's not a danger to society.)

The prisons are full anyway.

She may get a community order or a fine.

There may be more corruption at the heart of government or the Civil Service that works in her favour (nod and a wink to the judge.)

Just watching bates v post office now

Yeah mr bates raise the money. For the people that committed suicide and lost everything and went to prison. All these people

I wondered how she could name the five people she thought responsible when she didn't know there was anything wrong.

Another thought occurred to me - they were trying to close post offices - so what better way to avoid redundancy payments by driving people to quit 'voluntarily'?

Perhaps I am too cynical.

I would have liked one of the KC’s to ask her about the removal of the Horizon risk from the Royal Mail prospectus. Ok she may have been right that it shouldn’t have been there but should she not have asked the question why Royal Mail thought the risk was so significant it needed to be mentioned to potential investors?

shouldnt that risk have gone somewhere in the Post office and been appropriately managed? So as horizon was now their system not Royal Mail’s, it was now for Pol to also accept/ own whatever the risk was that RM had identified?

I guess she would have just said pol believed the system to be “robust”. Whatever the hell that means in IT terms.

I assume that since the prosecutions started when the PO and Royal Mail were one organisation, that RM would still bear some responsibility for earlier false convictions?

"Reflection" is a word I grew to hate at work. Basically it was a get out of jail free card. "I may have behaved like a complete arsehole, but I promise to reflect on my behavior and think about ways I can present my arguments in a less confrontational way". This seems to get people of the hook for almost anything. If pushed, they may agree to do an online anger management course. As far as they are concerned, all is now sweetness and light. As far as the underlings who work in their dept are concerned, nothing has changed and it's only a matter of time before the next outburst of bad tempered horrendous behaviour.

Vennels did a lot of reflecting, couldn't get her use of the R word out of my head. I am sensitive to it!

That said, on reflection, I think the moment we saw the true Vennels was when she broke down in front of Stein. "I loved the Post Office" was probably the most honest thing she said over the whole 3 days.

Why would she not love the post office? Huge salary, almost celebrity status for a while, responsibility, status, even a bloody CBE. It gave her her identity and her sense of self worth.

Her love for the post office was so deep, so all consuming, and presumably endorsed by god, that she would do anything for this fantastic institution that had bestowed wealth, status and influence upon her. The future looked bright, head of the post office, and then Bishop of London. To be honest, in her position I may would love the PO too.

If you go back and look again at that moment it is striking.

Errant sub post masters were just people who stood between her and her true love.

"Reflection" is a word I grew to hate at work. Basically it was a get out of jail free card. "I may have behaved like a complete arsehole, but I promise to reflect on my behavior and think about ways I can present my arguments in a less confrontational way". This seems to get people of the hook for almost anything. If pushed, they may agree to do an online anger management course. As far as they are concerned, all is now sweetness and light. As far as the underlings who work in their dept are concerned, nothing has changed and it's only a matter of time before the next outburst of bad tempered horrendous behaviour.

Vennels did a lot of reflecting, couldn't get her use of the R word out of my head. I am sensitive to it!

That said, on reflection, I think the moment we saw the true Vennels was when she broke down in front of Stein. "I loved the Post Office" was probably the most honest thing she said over the whole 3 days.

Why would she not love the post office? Huge salary, almost celebrity status for a while, responsibility, status, even a bloody CBE. It gave her her identity and her sense of self worth.

Her love for the post office was so deep, so all consuming, and presumably endorsed by god, that she would do anything for this fantastic institution that had bestowed wealth, status and influence upon her. The future looked bright, head of the post office, and then Bishop of London. To be honest, in her position I may would love the PO too.

If you go back and look again at that moment it is striking.

Errant sub post masters were just people who stood between her and her true love.

What I cannot get over, is that apparently nobody in ALL that time, looked at the figures of, as the system portrayed it, massive theft.. and thought:

'Isn't it funny that this Horizon system is showing us huge theft related losses we've never seen before'...

And then on investigation:

'Isn't it funny that allll these SPM's are looting huge amounts of cash but haven't got a thing to show for it, no flash cars, flash houses, fancy holidays, no trace of it in their banking...noooooothing..'

I really can't get past that, that you'd roll out a new system then ignore a sudden change in trend like that!

I think the truth here is that senior management in the PO assumed all sub postmaster were on the take. The new computer system had just revealed its extent for the first time. Multiple examples of this thinking in the enquiry.

Bit like the old response to police corruption "I never fitted anyone up who didn't deserve it".