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

KMc saying he never saw POL's risk assessment (the colour coded, traffic light type) that accompanied the Common Issues Trial legal advice.

Not able to watch, but this all sounds very "I see no ships..."

If we give McCall the benefit of the doubt, he was so traumatised by the shocking news of the GLO result that it wiped his memory and he's now not remembering anything. I hope it didn't also wipe his memory of the lovely holiday he had out in Africa on a nature reserve.

KMc's basic position here is that it never crossed his mind that POL would lose the CIT, that he wasn't warned that they might, that he never saw any relevant documents at the time, and that he had no idea there might be ramifications of POL operations if they lost.

He also can't remember conversations he had with Tim Parker in private about any of this.

Suddenly his memory is very, very clear on the recusal application.

As we move onto the discussion of the recusal application, McCall becomes more and more a diminished figure.

Yep, crystal clear on the recusal application and the words used - now he (KMc) can dump it with Lord Grabiner QC - he (Grabiner) said 'there was no alternative'.

You've got to laugh at all these people from Post Office thinking how unreasonable it was that Justice Fraser didn't consider witnesses from their side as being believable. It's a complete mystery how he could have formed this view. The only conceivable answer is extreme bias.

That was all very revealing in terms of how management of Post Office at board level could have ended up being a complete shitshow.

If facts are inconvenient, ignore them. If they can't be ignored, deny them. If they can't be denied, reinvent them.

I can't watch today - stupid work - but thank you for the excellent updates.

Clearly today is another shit-show installment of Post Office "heard nuffin, said nuffin, saw nuffin"

KMc says it's difficult to get a handle on things when a NED role involves only a couple of days a month.
Maybe that's because those days didn't involve reading the documents that were sent to him.

That was a blistering last question from counsel for Jo Hamilton. Dismal dismal response from McCall hiding behind being on a subcommittee as a shield against accepting that he had a wider responsibility as SNED.

Early break, resume at 13.35 for a longer afternoon session.

I won't do it justice but roughly it was about an email exchange between Vennells and the PR guy confirming that they continue with the Horizon is robust line that by 2019 they knew was not true and push it hard and threaten the media, potentially with legal action, if it was questioned. McCall was asked if he, as SNED, had a duty to intervene when this strategy was clearly wrong. (Especially when it was being done on behalf of the government.)

McCall's response was effectively that he received the relevant emails while wearing his subcommittee hat and since the subcommittee had no responsibility for PR strategy, none of this was anything to do with him.

In the context of corporate governance I’m also finding it so questionable as to wonder if it is negligent. He wasn’t aware of anything in the past but then again he didn’t think it was his role or function to know of anything in the past.

Now Kelly Tolhurst, baby minister for Post Office, as part of a wider brief, is giving evidence.

She lost her Rochester seat as an MP a couple of weeks ago to Labour. This is not a good month for Kelly Tolhurst.

'Being a new minister' is being used a lot by KT.

Her performance is much less assured than we've been seeing of late. But if she doesn't turn into a mendacious arsehole this afternoon she'll be streets ahead of many.

The strong feeling I'm getting here is that not only was Tolhurst out of her depth but she was also asleep at key points.

This is disappointing. Although it shouldn't be that surprising.

Crikey she's all over the place.

Right. So she's saying that when she was new into the post, which was for the duration of her whole 19 months in role, she was not made aware of anything she needed to be aware of. And she didn't ask to see anything important because she was already reading a lot. And that that kinda contravenes her witness statement but hey, today's today and ooops sorry.

She met with Vennells and 'touched on' the litigation but seemed to focus on other issues.

I'm going to stick with it but by the end of this session I expect I'll know less than I did at the start.

So 5 minute discussion with Vennells about legal, financial and reputational issues for the POL should it lose any parts of the litigation.