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

Seems like an accurate description of most lawyers that work in government

But Susan Crichton deferred to him!

Ian summery of Jarnail Singh is pretty accurate.

Mr Singh didn't actually do any "lawyering", he was essentially a messenger.

Amusing stationery banter there between counsel and witness.

Howay Beer, you must know what a spring binder is. 😂

It's like when I was trying to explain a VCR to a 12 year old!

One thing Henderson is not getting right here is that his testimony, both in his witness statement and before the Inquiry, is mixing up what happened at the time and what he's learned subsequently from following the Inquiry.

No doubt Jo Hamilton is there. It must be awful for her to relive all this.

They're going through Jo Hamilton's case, looking at particular documents used by Post Office to ruin her. Assuming she's in the room, and she always seems to be, this must be a somewhat retraumatising trip down memory lane for her.

Cross-post.

Sorry, nauticant! I feel so badly for the SPMs even though in some senses they must welcome this being brought out into the open.

Well done Second Sight on their report on Jo Hamilton's case, looking at Post Office's investigation report and Post Office then wrongly prosecuting her (in 2003). What went wrong is all there, in 2015.

That was utterly damning.

Blimey, then there's the response from Post Office to the SS report (drafted in the background by Andy Parsons). Basically pushing forward confidentiality and privilege to shut down SS having found a miscarriage of justice.

That is astonishing and disgraceful.

All I can think is 'bloody hell'.

And this is unpicking even worse subsequent behaviour by POL in that letter by Rodric Williams (solicitor) on behalf of the POL.

Andrew Parsons. Again. Incredibly aggressive and berating. What a piece of work.

I was only half-listening but was there a tiny involuntary sniff from Mr Henderson when AP's name was first introduced?

(edited due to indignation typos)

Very good response letter there from Mr Henderson.

It's completely damning.

It also has linked, in my head, to the Parliamentary Select Committee.
Ian brought up with the MPs that the PO wouldn't share the legal files.

It's now clear that Ian and Ron had an.opinion that the legal team were holding theft charges to "blackmail" (my word) Jo and other SPMR, but wanted the legal files to show this as a fact.

In the Select Committee Paula and Angela lied ("we have shared all relevant files"), obstructed ("we didn't know SS wanted these files") and then finally refused to confirm if they would share the legal files with Second Sight.

Unreal.

So what did Post Office do? They rebooted the re-examination of Jo Hamilton's case with all of the damaging information having been made to disappear.

I'm gobsmacked. But at least this does show the true nature of the mediation scheme.

This is utterly appalling from the PO

Good grief. They removed the crucial security report. 'Airbrushed out'.

Nice work, Mr Beer and Mr Henderson. You have shone a light on the fact and the nature of the criminal cover-up.

Its truley gobsmakimg.

I'm no.lawyer, but surely that is fraud or perverting the course of justice or something?
You cant just delete information out of documents.

Henderson said that out of 700 prosecutions, Post Office legal department only held about a dozen files and it was just a fantastic stroke of good luck that one of them was Jo Hamilton's. There's the "shambolic" he mentioned right at the start of his evidence.

I think criminal lawyer for POL (as a prosecuting authority) Jamail Singh is in trouble here, saying that 'everything that needed to be disclosed has been disclosed and there is nothing to worry about'. That was untrue.

Mr Henderson suggests he has breached his duty as a prosecutor. Hard to disagree with that.

Susan Crichton back in the picture again. She was in charge of Jamail Singh but she wasn't a criminal lawyer so deferred to him ...

SRA announced that it's investigating but (at least so far) has only mentioned Post Office. It is possible that that will be the only investigating it does which would be a failure, but wouldn't be that surprising.