Paula Vennells is history but now at the Post Office Inquiry is Fujitsu distinguished engineer Gareth Jenkins - thread 4

[nauticant]

A continuation of this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5094266-paula-vennells-was-done-the-other-week-the-post-office-inquiry-is-now-questioning-associates-and-others-thread-3

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

I’ve caught up with the first half of Andy Dunks's performance. He looks incredibly uncomfortable - as well he might be - and the faux-baffled schtick of repeating Mr Beer's questions as though he doesn’t understand isn’t fooling anyone.

I think that repetition thing is to buy time to construct an answer.

I’m sure it is!

There are a few at Fujitsu that could face prosecution for perjury and/or perverting the course of justice, but I'm not sure there has been anything that clearly implicates senior management. Post Office, on the other hand, I think prosecutions could potentially go right to the top of the organisation.

It sounds like it could rumble on for quite some time so. I really hope that those responsible do get properly held to account so it's meaningful for SPMS. Not just an afternoon of squirming at the inquiry.

Tomorrow morning (with a 10.05 start time):

This “significant error of judgement” by Tim Parker [to hide the Swift review from the government] was picked up in 2020 by the Post Office’s Senior Independent Director Ken McCall and reported to the government by the UKGI’s director on the Post Office Board, Tom Cooper. Cooper says McCall felt it would be wrong to take any action against Parker because it would be “disproportionate”.

Tomorrow afternoon:

Kelly Tolhurst was Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 19 July 2018 - 13 February 2020 so was in the midst of things when the GLO civil litigation was going on, although she arrived after the Common Issues judgment.

Well, McCall certainly had the right background to join the board of Post Office, many years of experience in delivery and logistics companies.

Curiously he thinks the board of Post Office was very well set up to engage with IT issues. But he sort of admitted that the board was lacking in experience in legal matters.

Unfortunately it didn't take long before he started being mealy-mouthed and evasive. I think he's going to go with the board always acting correctly but wrong-footed by events.

He didn't think it was the duty of the board to think about existential threats to the business represented by past liabilities. He thought the role of the board was to be forward-looking rather than backward-looking. I'm finding this somewhat surprising.

I accept that there's truth in the claim that the executive of Post Office kept the board in the dark, but the board also managed to keep at arm's length, in an out-of-sight-out-of-mind way, some of the tricky things like Horizon, prosecutions of subpostmasters, the GLO litigation etc.

Fuck me, McCall was sent the Simon Clarke advice document to prepare for giving evidence today and he's gone out of his way not to read it because he considers it not relevant to his time at Post Office.

So, he's going for sheer obstructiveness unless it suits him.

McCall's wrong-footing Sam Stevens, inquiry counsel, to some degree by his increasing obstructiveness and obtuseness. Stevens is starting to get exasperated.

This is very unexpected. There's a whole load of evidence and documents about when "everyone" became aware of the Swift Review, and McCall is absolutely denying having been made aware of the Swift Review until the Inquiry sent him the papers. He's doing it in an "I did not have sex with that woman" way and is effectively saying everyone except him is lying. I have no idea why he'd try to reinvent this well-evidenced set of events in this way.

I started watching this a few minutes ago. Thanks for the commentary thus far, nauticant.

Sir Wyn stepping in to seek clarity from Mr Fluffy-Fog.

Sir Wyn Williams intervenes in an "are you sure you want this to be your evidence?" way.

The Inquiry is effectively scratching its head over McCall, and so Sam Stevens called for a break.

Sir Wyn wants to know how KMc can have decided not to 'discipline' TP over keeping the Swift QC report to himself when he didn't know what was in it.

Mr Stevens follows up. KMc trying to claim he knew of it, but he hadn't read it, despite miraculously knowing that the contents should have been disclosed to the Board ...

This beggers belief.

It's bizarre. One could read it as McCall being determined to make everyone think he's lying for reasons only he knows.

KMc's claim that he never saw the report until the inquiry sent it to him is extraordinary to say the least.
I am really, really hoping that in the break counsel can come up with a live link that shows McK opened and printed off the report a la Jarnail Singh.

I think his mind-boggling claim not to have read it when the inquiry sent it to him makes more sense now he's claiming never, ever to have seen it. Easier to maintain a complete lack of knowledge when under pressure from pesky counsel with questions about exactly what he knew and when.

Sam Stevens is having another, possibly last, go at presenting a document to McCall showing that what he's saying today to the Inquiry about the Swift Review is not correct. McCall still avoiding engaging with having been caught out.

KmC finally admitting that his recollection that he didn't receive and read the Swift report might potentially not be entirely correct - did I hear that right??

Inquiry counsel is backing McCall into various corners and wringing concessions out of him, that show that what he declared in his witness statement is, in a number of respects, not true. McCall is being distinctly less bolshy.

At this point it seems arbitrary whether any answer McCall might provide is true.

If I had to guess, I'd say that McCall is so mortified at his involvement in the utter disaster of the GLO litigation that he tends to try to deny involvement whenever he can, and his bizarre pretence and pantomime over the Swift Review was part of that.

I think you may be right nauticant. This is the first time any emotion has crept into his voice.

Common Issues Trial outcome was a shock to him (KMc) as legal advice was so positive that POL 'had the better of the arguments'.