Paula Vennells was back in Phase 5/6 of the Post Office Inquiry and now we're at Phase 7 - thread 5

[nauticant]

A continuation of this thread about the Post Office Inquiry:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5105378-paula-vennells-is-history-but-now-at-the-post-office-inquiry-is-fujitsu-distinguished-engineer-gareth-jenkins-thread-4

The Inquiry is at Phase 7 which is about how things stand now and looking to the future. Here's the timetable:

https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/phase-7-timetable

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

John Bartlett is not suitable for his job.

He has no idea what he is doing. He is completely out of his depth.
Mr Blake is giving him proper shit.

I'm.not sure I heard this right:

Mr Blake: how many SPMR are currently being investigated by police?
John Bartlett: 25
Mr Blake: What is happening with these cases?
John Bartlett: I don't know, as not all of them were referred by the investigations team.
Mr Blake: Well how many out of the 25 was referred to the police by your team.
John Bartlett: I think 25.

What??1

Bwha ha ha ha ha,

John Bartlett wrote in a report that the "the POL Investigations team have an unblemished reputation"

Mr Blake us not impressed.

I think I nearly coughed up a lung.
Again he is playing with words and he is explaining he meant something else.

If it's a Jason Beer day - it's possible that it is being squeezed in because the Lucy Letby inquiry is not sitting tomorrow.

I'm not sure how he manages being involved in 2 very complex public inquiries that are running simultaneously.

Sir Wyn clarifies - the Inquiry only sitting 9-1 tomorrow

Foat is to appear remotely on health grounds

I caught a bit of this today. I did see that the Moneygram compliance team reported an issue as well as an internal flag going up due to sheer volume of cash and transactions [£3.3m] coming in from one branch. Seems to be with the Lancashire Police for suspected money laundering so it's not all investigations that can be tied back to Horizon bugs?

The amount of money that is flowing through the PO is staggering. £3.6bn in cash for banking transactions alone in August? All the more reason their controls and systems need to be utterly robust but given the average % of theft in retail by staff it can't ALL be Horizon

I fell asleep, so just getting back into watching John Bartlett evidence.

I'm.just watching the Lancashire Police case, with the Moneygram case and allegations of money laundering.

The CPS decided to not progress the case and have taken no further action.

We've seen the letter from POL to the Police, arguing this decision.
I thought it was a letter from POL lawyer, but it seems John Bartlett was involved in drafting this letter.

IANAL. So just looking at this from a layman's point of view.
But what John Bartlett and POL are failing to realise is Horizon is a poison chalice, the bad apple.

Getting a conviction in which the police and CPS need to use Horizon as part of the evidence, they will never get a conviction, especially at trial.

POL can argue till thier blue in the face that the current Horizon system is more or relatively more robust that the previous Horizon, but nobody will believe them.

I've been on jury service before, and I'm thinking about what I would think if I was on the jury where CPS presented Horizon data as part of the evidence.
All the defence has to do is mention "Horizon scandal", "Alan Bates", "All the previous prosecutions that have been overturned", and they have now successfully introduced reasonable doubt in my mind.

I'm.sure there are SPMR who are involved in theft or have commited a criminal act. All professions have them.
The Police definitely has them. My own profession has people who have been convicted of theft.
I think @nauticant has said this before, but POL are never going to get a successful conviction until they get rid of Horizon and have had years of confidence in thier new NBIT system.

I think counsel to the Inquiry have been exploring this issue. That Post Office are handling vast amounts of public money. That there will be thefts. That Post Office are duty-bound to investigate and, if the evidence supports it, to have the Police take cases to court. But Post Office don't want to do it because the past is so toxic, and in any case they'd struggle to get convictions for the reasons you mention. They're in a state of paralysis. So I feel that a lot of the discussion today and all the talk about guidelines and policy is somewhat of a sham.

I was thinking about the last two witnesses being relatively new to Post Office and wondered who in their right mind, having reasonable career prospects, would join Post Office. Doing that carries a real risk of damaging one's future. Obvously, many of those who've been there for decades are stuck, they have nowhere else to go.

But there's a more serious threat. What's going to happen when no one wants to be a subpostmaster? I can't imagine how limited my choices would need to be for me to take this on myself.

I agree @nauticant

I was thinking back to Nick Reads reasons for wanting a pay rise and it was to do about attracting talented people for the Senior Executive team .

I think this is a false view. POL dont have a problem attracting talented people because of the remuneration they are offering.
They have a problem recruiting talented people because nobody who actually has the skills to sort this all out, would risk putting thier career in jeopardy.

I personally would not become a SPMR or work at a post office.

Just listening to John Bartlett, I don't have the confidence they have changed culture.
They seem to have restructured the investigations, so now it is the Retail and Contracts Team who conduct these investigations into SPMR

John Bartlett has responsibility to make sure these teams are conducting interviews etc correctly. But he has not put in place any policies, checks and balances, guidance.

He is responsible to make sure Retail and Contract teams are doing the right thing, yet he has said he doesn't have any involvement or knowledge of what these teams are doing as that's Melanie Parks job.

It doesn't make sense to me - he can't be both responsible for the SPMR investigations, but also have no knowledge or awareness of what is happening.

The NFSP lawyer has described it really well.

All POL have done is arrange the deck chairs.
Nothing has really fundamentally changed.

I've not had a chance to watch the last 2 days, so the updates/commentary are much appreciated. Thank you @minou123 @nauticant @Lunde
It all sounds deeply disappointing...no improvements made because no brains or common sense are employed...

I really wanted to watch Ben Foat having the thumbscrews applied, preferably by Mr Beer, but I’m out today. Is it happening?

I'm just about to join the stream. I'll stick it on at x1.5 and will have caught up before the end. Mr Blake is doing the cross-examination.

I'm not watching as I'm at the doctors, but will catch up later.

As far as I can see, it is Mr Blake who is asking the questions.

Can I divert this thread just for one moment and ask a question? I’m also watching the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry from Salisbury and right now it looks like ‘Our Jase’ , Mr Beer is sitting there …..
Does he have a twin or is he just very busy I wonder?

He specialises in inquiries:

He is presently instructed in:

• The Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, as Leading Counsel to the Inquiry
• The Covid 19 Inquiry, as Leading Counsel for NHS England
• The Grenfell Tower Inquiry, as Leading Counsel for the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
• The Thirlwall Inquiry, as Leading Counsel for NHS England
• The Malkinson Inquiry, as Leading Counsel for Greater Manchester Police
• The Dawn Sturgess Inquiry, as Leading Counsel for Counter Terrorism Policing South East
• The Jalal Uddin Inquiry, as Leading Counsel to the Inquiry
• The Undercover Policing Inquiry, as Leading Counsel for a group of undercover police officers

He's also Head of Chambers of 5 Essex Chambers and sits as a Deputy High Court Judge (KBD and ChD) and as a Recorder of the Crown Court.

And back to Mr Foat …..he’s a slippery one isn’t he ?
Going to be a busy day…..

Foat has provided 6 witnesses statement and 4 supplemental information disclosure statements. It seems he's closely following this and whenever he sees something where he needs to steer the narrative, in goes another document.

This morning's session will be split into evidence about the past and then current status/next steps.

If there's one phrase that characterises his evidence it's "I was not involved in".

Asked to comment on Rod Williams (whose Inquiry evidence was awful): experienced, competent, a person of integrity.

To be fair to Foat, if what he's saying is correct, he simply didn't have responsibility for the GLO (that was Jane MacLeod), but was line manager for some of those involved, for example Rod Williams. In this case, him being in the dark is quite understandable.

Wow. That is so impressive.

According to Foat, everything that happened that the Inquiry is interested in was Jane MacLeod's responsibility, and she didn't share information or decision-making with him. I wonder whether the Inquiry is watching this non-evidence and thinking that they should have made a strong attempt to drag MacLeod into giving evidence.