Paula Vennells was done the other week, the Post Office Inquiry is now questioning associates and others - thread 3

[nauticant]

A continuation of this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5081592-paula-vennels-being-questioned-at-the-post-office-inquiry-followed-by-others-thread-2

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

Summary: the mediation scheme was designed to fail for subpostmasters, in order to destroy any remaining hope they may have had, while pretending to be seeking to help.

Thanks 👍

We seem to be emerging out of the dismal fog of the mediation scheme into more lively cross-examination. Currently discussing Remote Access.

"it has a different meaning for different people"

I still think that a very effective move would be for a supostmaster to turn their back on the various schemes, and to go to the High Court and sue for £5M for their life having been ruined. This would blow apart the miserably low amounts of money the government is hoping to get away with in compensation.

This would need to be someone who suffered the worst, ie a conviction so not Alan Bates. It would also need to be someone willing to undergo years more pain when they'll be more than a decade in already.

You can easily imagine them just wanting it all the over though can't you. They've gone through so much over such a long period of time. And post office seem to be essentially shameless so I would imagine just trying to drain their financial and mental reserves. It must be so hard on them listening to this shit show.

I truly find it dry when Beer isn't around. It really feels like watching paint dry.

You'd miss him alright.

Ooh, murky stuff, Post Office wanted to use the "it's never used top secret" remote access to correct a problem in a branch that was nothing to do with litigation, and felt they had to seek Parsons' permission to do this, and he proposed some tricks, and then sought to hide everything away under privilege. Deary me.

I have been out and am just catching up again. I am astonished that Parsons thinks he can advise about Transaction Corrections when he's not an accountant, book-keeper or IT person, but at the same time when it's a matter of a legal principle, he is a mere conduit.

In short, in Grabbit's words yesterday, it's bollox.

He tends to use the royal "we" when being forced to concede a poin/fact

He seemed to have a very good understanding that what they were doing was dodgy AF. If this came out it would be disastrous etc. There's surely no talking his way out that.

God, that email doesn't come across well 😬

Yes, his choice of metaphor -'thinning the herd' (of 500 claimants) and providing 'aircover' (for POL) is revealing.

As PPs have said, AP's appearance and demeanour is not what I was expecting from the tone and content of his emails. Quietly spoken, non aggressive, not at all the 'big beast' who appears on paper.

I suspect it's a case of being unable to defend the indefensible. It's all there in black and white after all. So no point in making oneself look like a complete brute on top of that. Take your medicine with good grace AP!

It's a completely different tact from his colleague Stephen Dilley.

Dilley demeanor was defemd the indefensible.
In particular he cruelly suggested/implied that SPMR Lee Castleton was to blame for all the POL and WBD mistakes.

(He aaid something like Lee Castleton refused to settle or 'do as he was told', so he only had himself to blame for all the f8nancial problems he suffered)

I wonder if Andy watched Dilley's cross examination and saw how bad it was. So has taken a completely different tact?

He sounds dreadful! Anyone could tell you that wouldn't 'play well'. Especially when they have all this evidence being rolled out. What's the point in being bullish. Awful.

I am still way behind, but just on the email in which AP describes Seema Misra and Jo Hamilton as liars and criminals.

The core participant lawyers are going to go through him tomorrow, its going to get very brutal.
Jo will absolutely be there tomorrow and Seena has attended a few times.

Belated placemark on this most excellent thread.
Thanks @nauticant et al

You're welcome.

At the end of today, Julian Blake KC said he expected to continue tomorrow for an hour and after that there would be one and a half hours of questions from Core Participants, so if they keep to that we should be done by lunchtime.

I have managed to see all of todays hearing, thanks to nauticant tip play at 1.5 speed.

I have a theory about what may happen tomorrow.
Today AP was meek, respectful, and answered very quietly (almost to the point I couldn't hear him)

However, we have seen from other lawyers, the behave one way with the lead Inquiry KC, but behave completely different with the core participant lawyers

So,my theory is he will keep up this act tomorrow for the first hour.

But as soon as Stein, Page, Maloney start their questions, I expectwe will start to see a very different side to Mr Parsons. Perhaps his true nature.

Well from the email Comms, the meek thing is a particular persona. If they needle him a bit you could see him losing the cool and running his mouth off.

The media, guardian and telegraph, have reported on Andrew Parsins evidence today, focusing on his email calling Neil Thiomas, Seema Misra and Jo Hamilt8n liars and convicts.

In other very good news Sub-postmasters in Scotland who were wrongly convicted as a result of the Post Office Horizon scandal will be automatically exonerated tomorrow.

Can they sue him? Not that I expect they would want to bother, having already been through enough.

I asked a similar question on the last thread @Peregrina, but it was more around suing Paula Vennells.

prh47bridge kindly provided a response which advhsed there may be some they can pursue civil cases against, but that won't include people like Vennells. They want to bring private criminal prosecutions if the authorities fail to do so