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 was listening to the radio yesterday when a guy mentioned about how Vennells was in charge of the PO in 2013 when Royal Mail was privatised in 2013. Meaning she may have known about the problems with the Horizons software at the time of the sale.

This would have put off buyers of Royal Mail, had they been aware.

Apparently in the corporate world, this is quite serious.

I was working yesterday so am just catching up now so apologies if this has been talked about.

the time lines for me are sketchy. But, does this mean the floated share price was also inflated on the stolen profits?

don't know if the law of corporate manslaughter can extend to actions which drive innocent people to suicide, but if it does, then that is another ground for prosecutions.

i think Susan had it from the naughty chair at a minimum it’s harassment

The whole three days was one big excuse and dodging questions. She is a worm. End off. Her only intent is saving her own skin and taking no responsibility for what happened. She should face severe consequences IMHO.

At that point it's unclear. It was Royal Mail that was floated. Before this happened, Post Office Limited was separated out of RM and, at flotation of RM, POL was retained by the government. It ends up being deep accountancy to work out whether the money extorted from the subpostmasters would have been inflating just POL's profits, and would not have been seen to be part of RM's profits.

Corporate manslaughter applies when an organisation causes someone's death and its actions are a gross breach of its duty of care. I doubt the courts would apply it when someone commits suicide. However, even if it was corporate manslaughter, it would only result in a fine for Post Office. That wouldn't help subpostmasters at all. They want to see individuals held to account.

Susan Crichton was driven out of Post Office and was able to get a settlement for that. It's likely there were discussions about a possible unfair constructive dismissal claim and she got a hefty pay-off for her silence.

Just to be clear Crichton was no angel and played her part in some of the bad things that happened at Post Office, along with doing some good. This is highly informative about Crichton, Vennells, and Perkins: https://richardmoorhead.substack.com/p/as-good-as-it-gets-susan-crichton

By the way, Richard Moorhead has been consistently excellent in discussing the Post Office scandal for years. He's a Professor of Law and Professional Ethics at the University of Exeter.

I wonder whether Susan Crichton could bring herself to watch any of the previous few days….

I think that part of the problem is one of terminology - PV was Managing Director of the PO before 2012 - this was referred to in Court yesterday because she corrected a barrister - the CEO title was only adopted post separation from Royal Mail in 2012.

I have been trying to nail down PV's jobs at the PO - which has not been easy and I think have been deliberately blurred to avoid accountability - but as far as I man make out PV's roles at the PO
2007-2010 - Group Network Director
2010-2012 - Managing Director
2012-2019- CEO

So she was in senior management for a long time so her claims of not really knowing the organisational structure etc were blatant lies

If I recall correctly, prior to Post Office Limited being split from Royal Mail, the legal function and the prosecution of the subpostmasters was being run by Royal Mail. It only became a Post Office function from 1 April 2012, when POL was split of from Royal Mail and Vennells became CEO of POL.

Correct.

If nearly 1000 SPMs were convicted, do we know how many others just paid up to avoid being prosecuted? What happened to all that money?

Look up to the post today at 09:56.

What happened to all that money?

Paid out in bonuses to those involved in the cover up, and the rest would have gone to the Exchequer.

Vennells is not the only person employed or formerly employed by Post Office who could face charges. However, it now seems from her evidence that she could be charged with:

• Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice (a lot of the Post Office witnesses could face this charge)
• Misfeasance in public office
• Her contact with other witnesses after the inquiry was set up may be an offence under the Inquiries Act
• Suppressing information about Horizon from Royal Mail's prospectus when it was floated on the Stock Exchange could also be an offence

(Ex POL employee) Your PV timeline is correct. I knew her as the Network Director from when she joined until she got promoted to MD after Dave Y Smith left in late 2010. The CEO role was a step up again and while most of us assumed the job was going to be hers, it wasn’t a given.

I noted that PV was asked in the Inquiry if she was COO and I think she agreed although I never knew her to have that job title. Her predecessor, Dave Miller did go by the COO title but I always thought that was due to some inflation of job titles from when David Mills referred to himself as CEO. Mills’ successors (David Y Smith and PV) were both styled as MD rather than CEO until separation in 2012.

Going back to this and apologies for picking your brains does this make the relevance of the Moya(?) exchange more damning?

Are RMG being held to account for prosecutions done on their watch?

Doubtful because the really damaging stuff came out after April 2012. Before then there's plenty of stuff being suggestive of problems but it would be much harder to make a convincing case.

That said, they might be able to go after individual investigators working for Royal Mail pre-2012 because some of their behaviours were shocking.

The crime is perverting the cause of justice. You do not have to conspire.

According to lawyer friends, you would have to show that her actions prevented the proper administration of justice, and that is a hard thing to do. This is why the Gareth Jenkins / Susan Crichton / Simon Clark part of story is so important. I think it is the strongest link between her actions and the disruption of justice (Seema Misra). This is why her and all the lawyers deny knowledge of the Clark advice. Had they properly read and acted upon that advice then the Misra would probably not have been convicted.

You can also be an accessory to a crime, even after the crime has been committed. To my (non legal) brain, she seems to have been an accessory to Jenkins' alleged perjury. I think angela van den Bogard may well be done for perjury. The judge practically accused her of in court, and Beer accused her on making an incorrect statement to the court.

There is also "using a false instrument". This is one of the things Jeffery Archer got done for. He got a friend to write a statement giving him an alibi. On the basis of that statement a case was settled out of court. As it was an out of court settlement, the statement was never presented to a court. He therefore had not committed perjury, but did "use a false instrument to obtain a financial gain". He did commit perjury as well, but the "false instrument" charge was a surprise for him.

Sub postmaster confessions of false accounting were obtained under threat of prosecution for theft. If that threat of a theft charge had no legal basis (because the PO didn't know where the money was and therefore had insufficient evidence to support a theft charge), then maybe the confession was a false instrument that was used to pervert the cause of justice.

I must speak to Lawyer friends.....

I just think of those poor victims.

Noel Thomas led in handcuffs to jail. He spent his 60th birthday in a cell.
Janet Skinner , sent to prison whilst leaving two teenage children at home.
The post mistress who was pregnant and sent to jail.

The countless others that were arrested infront of their communities. Many lost their homes, many were left bankrupt.

Some of them were sent to mental health units because they couldn’t cope anymore. The people who tried to commit suicide, the people who did commit suicide.

The people who died as convicted criminals and never got justice.

No, you don't have to conspire but, as there were others involved, the authorities could go for conspiracy. It doesn't really affect the sentence and may be easier to get a conviction as all the prosecution have to show is that she agreed with others a course of action that would result in justice not being served on subpostmasters. They wouldn't have to show that she directly prevented proper administration of justice. So, for example, agreeing with others that Post Office would hide evidence that should clearly have been disclosed to defendants is conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

You wouldn't get her for accessory to perjury. You would have to show that she had encouraged Jenkins to commit perjury or helped him to do so. You might get Jarnail Singh, the Post Office lawyer who instructed Jenkins, on that basis, but I doubt it would stick.

Whilst the judge did accuse van den Bogerd of lying, I don't think she will be done for perjury. It is pretty much unheard of for someone to be charged with perjury for evidence in a civil case, let alone convicted.

Most subpostmasters did not confess. They simply pleaded guilty to false accounting. Even where there was a confession accompanying the guilty plea, you wouldn't get anywhere with an argument that Vennells or the Post Office was using false instruments. Apart from anything else, if the Post Office believed the confessions were genuine, which they clearly did, that is a complete defence.

Corporate manslaughter can definitely apply when someone commits suicide but I don’t know if they’ll apply it here. I used to work in prison education and if someone harmed or killed themselves because of your negligence it would be a matter of corporate manslaughter. That was part of our training anyway.

Although I’m not sure if that’s ever actually been applied in a prison context either as people do definitely kill and harm themselves in prison.