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

Seems a bit of repeated refrain:

Counsel: Here's a really damning report or advice, in black and white.
PO weasel: That report contained many positive things. The author verbally communicated to us a positive feel.

It's also the passive-aggressive "more in sorrow than in anger" delivery. The "I know you can't but help be a disappointment".

She got a bit snappy yesterday afternoon. So it will be interesting to see how she reacts later when she is pushed by some of the more abrasive barristers.

Yes, absolutely this.

Is she saying that she actually has no memories of the events that she is testifying about - but has reconstructed them 6months ago after seeing the documents?

This bit is interesting. It's JB pointing out that although she's using the Linklaters advice as a shield, that shield has holes in it because Linklaters suggested substantive work and Post Office had Deloitte put up a sham review of Horizon.

Yeah - he really manages very quietly to lead her into stating a position that is contradictory to what she's previously stated.

.... when she starts floundering like a flappy fish - you know JB has got her

The restrictions imposed on the Post Office about what they could do with the Deloitte report are eye-catching. Clearly Deloitte foresaw a risk of ending up as the fall guys, took steps to prevent that, and engineered things to extract themselves from what they foresaw as a situation likely to go badly South.

😮😮😮 re the election!

If Deloitte saw that an unsteerable ship was heading into iceberg-infested waters and decided to head off in the opposite direction, was there anyone on the board or in the executive of Post Office thinking similarly?

re the election!

Wasn't that the time of Fixed Parliaments? So talk of an election is hogwash.

Yes, just looked it up and the Act was passed in 2011.

We subsequently found that there were ways round the Act, but that didn't really come into play until after the 2015 election. And she is married to a long time politician.

Well he just caught her out re the timing anyway. But what a thing to put in writing.

JB: my last topic, the role of Mark Davies.

Ooh!

So the PO in the Horizon scandal is

• the "victim"
• the investigator
• the prosecutor

.... and now trying to hijack the "mediation scheme" meant to resolve issues between PO and spms

Jobs for the boys!

Ah. AP put Mark Davies forward for the job. Because he was so good.

I do like JB's choice of words - a cosy stitch up.

Jesus... she thought putting Mark Davies' name forward may look too cosy, then thought "no, that's silly".

Complete and utter lack of awareness...

AP: I don't think I knew that at the time.
Beer: You clearly did, because here's your name on the email chain.
AP: Oh, OK.

AP is massively over-explaining this. Bang to rights. Sure as hell it was 'too cosy'.

"I did sometimes have bilateral conversations...."

Is this woman on drugs.....what bizarre language.

Very very dodgy back door meddling at the BBC here at the time when Post Office were alarmed about a Panorama episode. This is where the Mark Davies-Jack Straw connection was proving its value. AP is being utterly dishonest here because she knows she cannot admit to the truth.

I think this is the part of 2 days of AP evidence that the media will latch on to.

It's all really murky isn't it!

AP is badly on the hook here but she knows she cannot retreat from answering. Normally she'd be able to say that it was all beneath her being something for the executive, but it's got Mark Davies all over it, and Mark Davies is her and her husband's placeman and creature. With whom AP is wrongly actively in conspiratorially contact with.

JB making brutal sport with an extraordinary email from Mark Davies. What an ending to his cross-examination!