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

The bonuses give motive though for a cover-up. The CEO Paula Vennells's bonuses were the tip of the ice-berg really - a whole heap of other Execs were on bonuses too, so in theory they had motive to underplay and try and influence the reports & info going to the Chair and the other Non-Executive Directors (NEDs).

JB at the end pulled some strands together: was it that the executive level, Vennells, Crichton etc, hid critical information from the board because the board would have made it known and blown open the whole mess, but if it could be kept quiet this would maintain the reputation of the Post Office brand?

Oh wait is it over or on a break

Break till 15.25.

They are back after the break.

I wonder if she realises what she has admitted by saying it's a cock up rather than a conspiracy. She is therefore admitting that there has been a cover up.

JB: Why didn't 3 successive general counsel not disclose the critical Clarke and other legal advice to the board?

AP has no idea why they didn't.

This to me is extraordinary. It would be mad not to disclose but there's no evidence it was. My suspicion is that everyone knew to discuss these things verbally with no record being kept.

Then goes on to talk about how many difficult things she dealt with as a civil servant. Yet more self aggrandizing....

The CEO Vennells seems very comfortable overriding her Chair's supposed wishes, in emails.

Another critical document, this time from Bond Dickinson, about insurance risks. Prepared for the purpose of it going to the board but AP is saying that for unknown reasons, this document or its contents never made it to the board.

This is all remarkably fishy.

Looks like it was hidden in August 2013 when 'everyone was in Tuscany'. Ooof.

I'm.not sure she has been prepped for this.

With PV it was really obvious her lawyers did practice sessions and told her how to answer the questions and she knew all the documents

Whereas AP seems to be flying by the seat of her pants. She was provided all these documents, had them for a while and should know she will be asked about them
Yet she's acting like this is the first time she's read them.
Either she did no.practice/or did not seek advice or whoever did the practice did a terrible job.

Burn!

She's a damn fool I have to say

All of these senior Post Office people have a pet they want to protect. With Vennells it was the PR guy and with AP it seems to be Chris Aujard.

Sir Wyn knows how significant that Bond Dickinson doc is.

Now she didn't know that the Post Office was fending off scrutiny from and external review by the CCRC ...

Jason Beer KC rightly pulling her up about her lack of direction and lack of setting a direction. No message from her to the organisation.

Oh hang on, now she's saying she didn't send that message then. Or maybe hmmm she's not sure. It was later she was more explicitly positive about it.

Asked abut the unsafe expert witness. She's 'getting tired now'.

Try being in jail, pal.

The AP defence

Yes!

I find it realky weird.

It was Mark Davies who was the Head of PR, and like Paula, he was very defensive of any criticism against her.
I watched Mark Davies evidence recently and anytime there was an email.or document which Paula had messed up, he had a very extreme reaction to any criticism.
I think at one point he said something along the lines that Paula was the best CEO (or something to that effect)

I find it a bit creepy, tbh.

Also remember that Davies was advising Vennells on her own personal PR on the run-up to her giving evidence to the Inquiry, many years after their professional relationship had ended.

I think she's deliberately playing the gormless twit role so any evidence is useless really. There's nothing of substance the prosecution can pin her down on.

AP has been married to a high profile and notoriously slippy politician for decades. At some points I felt I could almost see him in the chair answering in the same manner with the same words.

For AP, being Chair of a large entity was just another feather in her cap. By contrast, for PV, being CEO of Post Office, and the status she got from it, was a significant part of her identity.

Just watched Alice Perkins sessions from today. Unlike PV, who was blessed with the memory of a spongiform brain, alice has wonderful denial skills: ‘I’ve never seen x, y, z document’, followed by a wonderfully self-serving, ‘but if I had, I would obviously have initiated the course of action alluded to in accordance with the character of integrity, honour and intelligence that I obviously am’ ….

She reminds me of D’arcy’s aunt…. Had I have ever learned to play the piano, I would be proficient.

The exclusion of Susan C seems to have been of necessity in that had she been allowed to present her paper to the board, it would have been minuted and something Susan could have complained about and reported.

God Almighty. Where did the PO get these people from? Is that the best they can do with the salaries on offer? Bloody hell. It doesn't give you much confidence about the management class of the UK.

She reminds me of D’arcy’s aunt…. Had I have ever learned to play the piano, I would be proficient.

That's brilliant @toddlepod 😁you made me laugh.

You're absolutely right