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

Oh I see. I thought it was as in the past I've been told "Beer's on today, X is on today"

Thanks

Aah, Miss Hodge is exploring this: Kearns says CWU has no records of any members being prosecuted or losing their jobs.

I think AutumnCrow got it right be saying that it might be mentioned incidentally but beyond that I don't think there's an online resource that will reliably set out a schedule of some sort.

Looks like any CWU cases were kept at a local level. No rep ever appears to have escalated any case higher.

CWU research dept and Andy Fury's dept provided all the documentation to the inquiry and no emails or letters about cases were seen.

That example he gave of his "experience" of someone stealing £500 and being prosecuted, sounds like when you're in an interview and a Q catches you off guard and you have to fake an example 🤣

Did I hear right? The CWU doesn't offer any representation to members being prosecuted? In any circumstances?

Having to have a second witness session by Ward looks like sloppy work by the Inquiry but I think what happened was that in the earlier sesssion they had Ward bang to rights and assumed that in that case he'd own up to deleting the wording from the statement and were blindsided by him so blatantly lying. That meant that they went to the source document and found the truth and then had to waste time dragging Ward back in for another session either to get the truth out of him or show him up to be a liar.

'CWU weren't aware of the prosecutions at a national level'

Kearns seems to be saying that they (CWU) knew, but didn't really know, which is why there's no record at the CWU of the prosecutions. They were dealt with locally and people mostly resigned so not CWU's issue any more.

So the union weren't 'pro-active'? They had no idea of what was happening at a national level unless regional reps or members contacted them?
And the union weren't monitoring any prosecutions because the SPM would resign before prosecution ,so they didn't need to worry about it?

That's my take on it, @ladymalfoy45

In 2011 the subpostmasters were given a section within CWU that they could join if they were dissatisfied with the National Federation of Subpostmasters. Both had negotiating rights with the employer.

What a farce @AutumnCrow .

I wonder if the source document with Ward's amendments was among those that the PO suddenly "found" a few months ago

I remember reading that the PO had made extreme numbers of late disclosures handing over more than 75,000 documents between February and April 2024 and that over 67,000 of these were relevant to phases 5 and 6 - the current oral hearings.

Sir Wyn was not happy
"Sir Wyn Williams said: "We're going to carry on. That is perhaps a bold thing to do, because it does mean that there may be occasions in which witnesses are giving evidence where the documents haven't caught up with the witnesses. That is a highly undesirable state of affairs. But that can be cured, albeit with some cost to the witness, by recalling them if necessary. The alternative is to have a substantial break and in my opinion … that is not desirable.""

https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/post_office_horizon_evidence/

Thank you for the timely reminder, @Lunde.

Good to know that any of them can be recalled.

It’s likely that Mr Beer will be back for Kay Linell (as she is a pretty big name) especially as he is there at the enquiry for Graham Ward , however Sam Stevens is also there assisting (you can see the interviewing counsel always has another member of the team assisting and you just catch glimpses of their head/shoulder) so it’s anyone guess really. As pps have said it’s not published anywhere who will be interviewing the witness. Apart from guessing how much of a big player the witness is lol!

Oh bloody hell, the CWU's postmasters' section wasn't included in collective bargaining processes - not recognised by the Post Office.

Kearns doesn't know what reason the PO gave/give for refusal to recognise the CWU's subpostmasters' section. 'Not my day job'. But Andy Fury knows. Hurrah!

(I'm a bit of a trade union geek, sorry!)

This guy strikes me as rather unintelligent I have to say.

He gives me the impression of someone who doesn't know fuck all, and just talks shit to get by in his day job day-to-day.

I don't think seeing the big picture here is his forte.

It makes me wonder how much there was a culture within the CWU of subpostermasters being regarded as quite troublesome, teaming with thieves who end up resigning, giving the union all these incorporation and negotiating problems, while at the same time the CWU was trying to recruit them for the subscriptions despite the known paucity of available representation. All a tad Vennellesque iyswim.

'Representation was not my job'. He defers again to structure, the national executive function, the union's internal hierarchy, and Andy Fury.

I think we all need a short break, mate.

He's such a coward

The CWU only became aware of the widespread prosecutions of SPMs 'when it became public'. Kearns can't even remember when that was.

CWU, once it all was known all the way up to the Prime Minister, finally seem to have got on board.