Hundreds of Post Office workers ‘vindicated’ by High Court ruling over faulty Post Office IT system

[editor]

There's an almost elegance about her lies, with the pained tone, occasional regrets, frequent Guinness memory lapses and the rest. Also, I suspect a lot of it is actually true. True that is if you change she/senior management didn't know about x, y and z to didn't care. With that in mind, many of the sequences of events she describes probably ran broadly as set out, given that she's having to spin around the already revealed documentation, but with profoundly important conversations, common understandings and strategies left out. In other words, what we are seeing here is a profound and multi layered form of dishonesty. Something almost worse than outright lies.

Even if she truly didn't know what was going on (unlikely, I know), it still amounts to a gross dereliction of duty. She was the CEO. It was her job to know what the company was doing.

 

[Calamity1971]

Oh god she's in tears again

Vicks vapour rub under the eyes.
The only person she is crying for is her fucking self.

 

[existentialist]

Nah, I'm 100% certain she won't do time. There'll be some dithering between the police and CPS in a few years time, but absolutely no charges.

Sadly, I think you're right.

 

[two sheds]

Even if she truly didn't know what was going on (unlikely, I know), it still amounts to a gross dereliction of duty. She was the CEO. It was her job to know what the company was doing.

Yes that's what they're generally paid obscene amounts of money for.

 

[Wilf]

The other one I'd add to the bingo card is, when asked what she did about X, Y and Z, 'well, that would have been.../that would have gone to.../in the remit of...'.

 

[Petcha]

So she clearly lied to a select committee, surely thats a custodial offence

 

[Silas Loom]

She’s chosen a good day to avoid featuring in the headlines tomorrow.

 

[Petcha]

That briefing note with its drip down answers is the smoking gun. That was brutal.

 

[dessiato]

I worked as a CEO of company many years ago. The workforce was only about 400 total. I knew well enough everyone's job to be aware of the outlines of their jobs, but no details. I'd have known, eg, there was a team engaged in prosecuting people accused of theft. Beyond that I'd have known nothing. I can imagine she was in a similar position.

However, had I noticed the number of prosecutions, and I should have done, that were suddenly cropping up I'd have been having meetings to find out what the fuck was going on. I'd have been demanding, at the very least, weekly updates.

Because of this I can accept she didn't know everything at the beginning, but not that she continued to know nothing. I can only surmise that she chose to know nothing. And for this she should be pilloried.

 

[Chz]

So she clearly lied to a select committee, surely thats a custodial offence

It's not, but MPs hate being lied to so they'll make an effort for something to be done.

 

[skyscraper101]

She’s chosen a good day to avoid featuring in the headlines tomorrow.

Yeah I'm a bit pissed off about this. Her face should be all over the front pages tomorrow. But instead we're gonna get rat boy.

 

[brogdale]

Yeah I'm a bit pissed off about this. Her face should be all over the front pages tomorrow. But instead we're gonna get rat boy.

She's properly lucked out

 

[ElizabethofYork]

Yeah I'm a bit pissed off about this. Her face should be all over the front pages tomorrow. But instead we're gonna get rat boy.

Drowned rat boy.

 

[AverageJoe]

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be uncommon for senior level executive management to have no idea what the organization does or what it is responsible for. It's always someone below's problem and even more unsurprising when the outsourcing of system development is involved.

They don't like getting technical or getting their hands dirty by actually understanding things and making decisions. Everything is delegated and dictated. They 'dont want problems just solutions' usually without understanding the problem or the solution.

I'd love to say it's just the post office but can think of many other public and private examples. It's a cultural issue I absolutely detest and one many people feel the affects of on a daily basis.

The unusual thing with the post office is it has got to the public enquiry stage.

You mean, like..... The government?

 

[dessiato]

Drowned rat boy.

If only

 

[stdP]

Despite not being the big story, caught up on some of this this evening. I take a great deal of pleasure in watching a competent barrister execute a take-down nicely. Two rats for the day, one drowning, one backed in to a corner. I'm optimistic in that I think despite the GE announcement, she'll stick take a kicking on the front pages tomorrow - albeit largely in the margin - as I hope the editors feel that the public interest is still behind seeing justice done on this one. Besides, there's more testimony to come - if she hasn't run out of onions already.

Like most, I think it's stretching credulity to the limits to think you can remain ignorant enough to be completely unaware of at least some of the details of legal cases your company had been bringing in for a decade already when you joined, and another decade after, nearly seven years of which you're the official "I'm running this company" big cheese. If you were genuinely misled (and you ignore all the evidence given to the contrary for the time being), why, and by whom? If you weren't part of the big fat cover-up, surely you must know the people that were in a position to shield you so effectively from such vital information?

And this concocted contrition was a frankly extraordinary performance. If she'd have put on a pitiful show back when the whole ruddy edifice was crumbling and the scale of woe that had been inflicted on hundreds of innocent subordinates was becoming apparent, I might have cut her some slack. If she'd have dabbed her eyes a little at hearing about the far-reaching repercussions on friends, families and entire communities of a completely psychotic legal strategy that Kafka would have thought was a bit much, I could have sympathised. As it is, I think her empathy only seems to extend as far as "I'm sorry I got fingered for this".

 

[GarveyLives]

"Paula Vennells apologised for what happened, not what she did ..."

​

 

[Ming]

I wonder how the 'i don't recall' defense works legally? They obviously knew stuff but it's all 'i don't recall' and 'that wasn't my understanding'. So incompetence rather than malice. Would this remove legal culpability or just lower the penalty? Is it the limited liability corporation or the individuals at risk of legal jeopardy? Any Urban legal types know?
BTW I loved that the enquiry put a large colourful box of tissues in front of her. Top trolling.

 

[keybored]

Can't help reading his surname as Twatford... it's the 'W' in his first name that automatically makes a semi-spoonerism in my head.

It's everything he's said and done, for me

 

[Wilf]

The barrister is obviously very good, but I thought he might have pushed her more on her I didn't know, I didn't ask, I should have known stuff. 'Were there other areas of comparable incompetence? What did others think about your obviously poor performance? How did you keep the job if you were so shit?' It's not just to humiliate her - a noble endeavour - but to undermine her bullshit.

P.s. I've just discovered my phone autocorrects bullshit to Bellshill.

 

[Petcha]

He's letting her dig her own grave. This isn't a criminal court. He just needs it on the record for the criminal bit later. And he's clearly freaking her out with his attention to detail. She's incriminating herself piece by piece. I quite like his long pauses after some of her answers just to particularly put the shits up her.

 

[stdP]

The barrister is obviously very good, but I thought he might have pushed her more on her I didn't know, I didn't ask, I should have known stuff. 'Were there other areas of comparable incompetence? What did others think about your obviously poor performance? How did you keep the job if you were so shit?' It's not just to humiliate her - a noble endeavour - but to undermine her bullshit.

There's hopefully plenty more time for this to happen. Classic court technique is for you to say you don't remember something, and then have them produce proof that you actually very definitely did remember it on this, this, this, this and this occasion. I'm sure a great deal of evidence found its way in to the memory hole in the time this disaster has been incubating, but I'm equally sure there will still be papers or people that will say otherwise. At that point you generally have to either convince everyone that the evidence is lying, admit you're lying, or admit you're stupid.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Watching Vennells on Sky news now. She's a lying weasel. Everything she says is getting proved to be bullshit, at which point she tries to twist the narrative to stop her looking like a lying weasel... It isn't working.

 

[Petcha]

Jason Beer KC is saying to Paula Vennells that her evidence is that she did not see the Simon Clarke legal advice about the safety of past convictions. He then points out she appears to be taking legal advice from the head of IT and the head of PR about whether or not previous cases should be reviewed.

Vennells is mostly reduced to one word answers and confirmations at this point.

So she took the decision not to investigate older cases further based on the advice of her head of PR and head of IT and didn't consult her head of Legal (who had actually provided advice, which 'she didn't see)

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I keep having to stop watching as the blood-pressure is going through the roof. That Beer fella is excellent, how he doesn't just come out with "You fuckin' lying cunt!" I have no idea, I would, for sure.

 

[Saul Goodman]

I keep having to stop watching as the blood-pressure is going through the roof. That Beer fella is excellent, how he doesn't just come out with "You fuckin' lying cunt!" I have no idea, I would, for sure.

Every word out of her mouth is a blatant lie. It's like she tied her own shoelaces together and forgot about it, she's tripping herself up that often.
She's now got to the stage where she's realised she's getting tripped up with every lie she tells, so she tries to think of the best answer, and it seems the best answer is always "I don't remember that"... even then she's proven to be lying.

But she'll never face a judge and jury. Unlike the innocent people she deliberately framed, and sent to prison.

 

[Petcha]

Beer's being increasingly aggressive to her today. I almost feel sorry for her. Shes still got tomorrrow too.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Beer's being increasingly aggressive to her today. I almost feel sorry for her. Shes still got tomorrrow too.

I almost feel sorry for Beer, having to put up with her lies, but at least he's getting well paid for it.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

how he doesn't just come out with "You fuckin' lying cunt!" I have no idea

i assume that this is covered by the training that lawyers / judges get...

 

[Saul Goodman]

i assume that this is covered by the training that lawyers / judges get...

Political correctness gone mad.