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

Just a partner called Tom Beezer - who has a look of "Michael Scott".
Not come across his name very much.

The big one from Wombles is Andrew Parsins, and he is due to give evidence tomorrow and Friday.

Another non-apology apology.

Andrew Parsons supervised the writing and sending of this email:

https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/womble-bond-dickinson-told-post-office-hide-incriminating-evidence?page=1

“For now, we'll do what we can to avoid disclosure” and “try to do so in a way that looks legitimate”.

I wonder how Parsons will talk his way out of that one tomorrow. It should be interesting.

I'd expect him to blame the very junior lawyer since it went out in her name, and claim that he was too busy that his oversight failed momentarily.

The "author" of that email, Amy Prime, is still at WBD but occupies a low profile niche.

Oh but it's so terribly long ago etc

nauticant · Today 10:11

“For now, we'll do what we can to avoid disclosure” and “try to do so in a way that looks legitimate”.

Oh dear, it looks like their goose is cooked. I suppose that they never dreamt that all of their accidental confessions would been seen and heard at a tribunal.

Would all these damning emails ordinarily be privileged?

Yes they would. But there's been a massive miscarriage of justice and the lawyers will have been asked to waive privilege. (Along with others involved as senders and recipients also needing to provide waivers separately.) The lawyers could refuse and then I suppose it would turn into a legal fight but before that the lawyers would have to watch while their reputations were shredded as they'd tried to block an Inquiry.

This is one reason why I think an Inquiry is of value. We get to see stuff that we otherwise wouldn't see. Take yesterday afternoon, that was a real turning-over-of-the-stone and more importantly it related to things that wouldn't have been possible to take to court because there's no crime. If you just rely on things that go to court you don't get to see much and many of the harmful carryings-on would still have remained hidden away.

Here's an example of the mechanism at work:
https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/news/sir-wyn-williams-statement-following-response-request-waiver-lpp

Thanks, @nauticant - that's really helpful and interesting.

I started watching late this morning - are we any clearer on whose idea the seeking recusal was, i.e. the idea's point of origin?

Seems to have come from Lord Neuberger and David Cavender KC with the comment by Lunde being relevant:

It would also be interesting to know to what extent the very weak and passive PO leadership from the PV and AP affected things and allowed these senior lawyers freedom to pursue their own vendettas

I am gobsmacked that apparently the lawyers drove this with the Post Office seemingly doing what they were told.

The longer I watch this, the more monstrous it becomes to realise just how completely doomed the SPMs were. They simply didn’t stand a chance, did they?

It really struck me yesterday the the senior lawyers were driving the whole "let's get rid of the judge we don't like agenda" - while the board seemed to be really hesitant as the conflict between a publicly owned/reporting to government company attacking the judicially is dubious.

You would think that the CEO would be really active is these momentous decisions and yet PV seemed to be almost totally absent and extremely passive in the discussions and didn't even attend some of the (board?) meetings when these legal strategies were discussed.

That's true @Lunde

But I don't think Vennells was that passive. I think it was worse than that.

Whilst she didn't attend all the meetings, once the decision was made to make an application to recuse, she did message/email saying she was "pleased" with the decision and was "proud" of the board.
IIRC she even said it was a decision she fully agreed with.

From my point of view, she fully endorsed a decision she had no real understanding of.
You're right that as CEO she was not active in these momentous decisions, yet thought she knew enough to endorse them.

In my mind, that makes her incredibly dangerous. Not just incompetent or a bit of a fool, but endorsing decisions she had no business being a part of.

Vennell's passivity when there's a can to be carried has been noticeable throughout. It's always: "I'm just doing what I've been advised by others, just passing on what I've been told by others."

Alice Perkins gave this as the reason Vennells was considered poor in the role and possibly ripe for sacking.

It's an immensely successful strategy for climbing the greasy pole, because you always present yourself as the friend of the person you're talking to right now – together against the cruel world! But of course it's just manipulative twaddle.

nauticant, your "mean girls" description seems spot on. I do keep trying to look at it from additional angles, so as not to miss anything, but... yeah. Since you first mentioned it a while back, I've been unable to unsee that.

Yy, minou123, Vennells isn't genuinely passive. She's manipulative and underhand and butters people up.

As an aside and I realise flippancy is inappropriate; wouldn’t you love to have a General Election style swingometer at the bottom of the screen to show viewers reactions to these lying twerps - with increasing gasp volumes ….

Did anyone ever listen to the long and excellent crime drama on Radio 4 called The Corrupted?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b050z5cf

It's about the rise of a very clever criminal from humble East End beginnings to enormous wealth and influence in the Lords. In the drama (which mixed real world events and people with the fiction) this rise was very much helped by the very senior and very corrupt lawyer and peer Arnold Goodman.

I couldn't help having him in mind while watching the past two days.

On to Mr Matthew Lenton, the POL's document control manager.

Quals: a degree from U of Kent in Film & Philosophy, and an NVQ in IT. That's it. No other IT quals or legal quals.

There's just him, with one assistant in Chennai.

Following

Discussing the 'Data Integrity Sharepoint'.

Gareth Jenkins was one of the 10 or so people who had access to it.

It was common for people like G Jenkins to also hold data on their laptops. M Lenton thinks that they didn't end up storing all the data that Jenkins held - he was holding on to data (reports)?

Lenton was also a middleman between eg WBD and Fujitsu regarding data exchange.

Some back and forth between Matthew Lenton and Miss ?Page the barrister for the Inquiry for this technical witness, about deleted KELs (Known Error Logs).

..I loved The Corrupted

1493 deleted KELs, although 'some would have been invalid' (e.g. duplicates). Hence Mr Simpkins's 'reservations'.

That's still a lot of valid ones, though ...