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

In case anyone wants to get more stuck in to this, Nick Wallis does live events, and a modest donation, that supports his journalism, gets you on the mailing list for his informative and often entertaining "secret" newsletter:

https://www.postofficescandal.uk/live-events/

(2) Christopher Head on X: "#PostOfficeScandal Today everyone in the United Kingdom and beyond should tune in to watch📺 @PostOffInquiry to watch the arrogant & self serving account of George Thomson who is the former General Secretary of @NFSP_UK The organisation is a sham and it is time it is fully t.co/CFe8yqWB1s" / X (twitter.com)

This was interesting from the NFSP a month ago:

https://nfsp.org.uk/news/view?name=nfsp-statement-on-latest-from-horizon-inquiry

Meanwhile, Thomson remains deep in Onoda's Syndrome.

Thomson rubbished subpostmasters' litigation lawyers Freeths. His view in 2026:"Legally a contract does not have to be fair."

At took an hour for me to forget what a nasty piece of work he is.

"Legally contracts dont have to be fair"

INAL but surely that is not true.

Unfair Contracts Act, surely? Which is well old.

Andy Parsons emerges from his burrow with dirty tricks behind the scenes to keep subpostmasters in the dark.

Yep, Parsons at it again. As per.

He is so emmeshed with the legal games ... and being a lapdog he was so eager to play POL games

Would it surprise the thread to hear that Thomson held the PR guy, Mark Davies, in high regard?

This is not "This Is Your Life" George.

Nobody is giving you any awards and nobody cares about all the other work you did

And also POL's media strategy directing NFSP to contact journalists and spin a pro-POL and pro-Horizon line

'I make no apology' again
'We work closely with the Post Office' again
Bloody hell

Thank you. He's getting hammered on Twitter.

He was so sickeningly eager to be part of their little cabal. It’s actually disturbing to hear.

Personally, I am shooketh.

I has no idea Thomson held Post Office Executives in high regard.
Complete surprise.

Ooh, that email from Mark Davies revealing Thomson as Post Office's creature working as an informant.

I'm getting a strong vibe of a man sucking up to people he regarded as his socially superior friends.

I like the way Mr Blake is simply ignoring Thomson when he testily says things like, 'I've already told you that 7 or 8 times today'.

He just cannot admit to being wrong ... about anything

It is true in some circumstances. If the parties are doing business using one party's standard terms of business, the contract must be fair. However, if the parties have negotiated the contract, there is no requirement for it to be fair.

In Bates vs Post Office, the Post Office tried to argue that the subpostmasters contract could not be their standard terms of business as they weren't in the business of running sub-post offices. The judge, quite rightly, rejected this argument. So, whilst Thomson is correct that contracts don't have to be fair, he was wrong in thinking that the subpostmasters contract didn't have to be fair.

No Mr Henry <sad>

Barbed little joke there

Ha, Blake nicely links his final question back to the very start of his cross-examination and points out that Thomson was at his toadiest, working covertly for the Post Office PR machine, when he was negotiating to get a load of money out of Post Office. Blake ends with that hanging in the air.

Mr Steen!