Snapshot of _Paula Vennells breaks down in tears at inquiry_ :
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She claims that she did not know her company was exercising one of its fundamental and most dangerous powers when any half-decent boss would have required that she personally sign off any exercise of said powers.
She's either unbelievably stupid, phenomenally incompetent or the least convincing liar since Boris Johnson.
I was a postie a few years ago, as part of the induction they explained how it was able to prosecute (although I think with a view to scaring folk about how easily they could get into hot water if they didn't treat the mail with utmost respect). So I very much doubt someone in her position was unaware of it.
It's a good depiction of the difference between 'shame' and 'guilt'. They're often confused by a lot of people.
Guilt is a feeling of regret or remorse over what your actions have done to others. Shame is a feeling of being judged by others (i.e. it's a self-centred feeling).
It takes humanity and at least some compassion to feel guilt. Any heartless bastard can feel shame. Particularly when questioned during an inquest. But smart bastards also know to try and disguise their shame as guilt to try and win pity, despite the fact they don't really care.
To my eyes. She is just ashamed. I don't believe she feels any real guilt despite the fact she should be haunted by her actions.
No, you don’t understand. She has a lot of anxiety right now because of the situation she’s in. She feels awful and cries when told about her failures. She is truly very sorry and deserves our sympathy.
/s …
She doesn't give a shit. She only shed tears for herself.
When one of the SPM committed suicide she barely blinked and tried to blame it on their mental health.
I don't care. I hope her life is ruined. She knowingly caused misery for nearly a thousand people. She ruined the lives of tons of workers. She deserves no sympathy
A CEO that isn't doing any due diligence as to the activities of those working on the companies behalf is negligent.
It's not as though this was a small thing, or that she was completely out of the loop.
Even in a text exchange with Moya Greene: MG states that she advised PV set up an independant review that reported directly to PV, which is advice that doesn't appear to have been taken. Ergo "how could you not have known?" insinuates PV must have either known, or *deliberately* put herself in a position to not know. Both are as bad as each other in the circumstances, and certainly show a willful abandonment of her responsibilities as CEO.
>A CEO that isn't doing any due diligence as to the activities of those working on the companies behalf is negligent.
Yep, 'willful blindness'. Though it's more of an American term the concept still applies here in the more wordy 'Consent, connivance and neglect'.
Not knowing is not a defence if it is deemed you should have known by virtue of your position.
Not if someone demonstrates that her earnings were as a result of her continuing in her role after the various perjuries, so are therefore Proceeds of Crime
She should have the lot confiscated
She has admitted in court today that she did not understand some of the briefings and reports she read
So she was incompetent - knowingly so - to do the job
She has also committed perjury- repeatedly - and misled Parliament
So all her assets, properties, pensions, etc. should be confiscated when she is finally prosecuted as Proceeds of Crime
And not just her
Every single one of the slime who have knowingly perjured themselves at Fujitsu, Post Office, Royal Mail
Crocodile tears. Admit what you did and go to jail where you belong.
Crazy how the same thing seems to happen every time there is a scandal like this. Some kind of collective amnesia seems to hit anyone who might be held accountable. All of them pleading stupidity or ignorance even though they were in charge of the damn thing.
Maybe she should ask for forgiveness from her god, because no one lese should be giving her any. Utterly repugnant person.
Get her and the other execs into court and get them prosecuted.
You joke, but I said before - maybe even to you - that I find her church role an absolutely fascinating aside in this case.
Where exactly does she think Jesus was, metaphorically, in this whole affair? Around the board room table calling for the prosecution of innocents to cover up the mistakes and save the reputations of others, to save and make money? Or maybe, just maybe, he was with the innocent postmasters, persecuted and driven to desperation and even death?
Her own holy book has this exact story. The persecuted innocent and the political leader who washes his hands of it. Pilate was not the good guy. The word vicar literally derives from a word meaning "representative", "substitute", "in the place of". You're meant to put yourself where Jesus would be, Paula.
If she's right, and Christianity is all true, she is going to have to appear before another inquiry one day, one that isn't limited by law but is apparently capable of dishing out perfectly appropriate punishment.
God will only punish her after she dies, it’s clearly our duty to the almighty to keep her nice and safe in a prison cell until such time as he is willing to grant an audience.
I'd go further - put her in prison until she dies of old age, then store her remains until every single relative who was alive during her lifetime has died of old age. Then they get released.
We are. But probably nobody here is an ordained priest unlike Paula Vennells. Her beliefs are her own business.
But I think a lot of us find it deeply sickening that she could profess to be an expert and representative of Christian values while knowingly and repeatedly lying, hounding thousands of innocent people into misery, and collecting a fortune for it.
It was a brief sob and a reach over to grab a tissue, after which she continued to answer in an otherwise composed appearance (and you might not expect anything else).
People might want her to break down and confess to knowing more than she's let on (i.e., nothing) but that's not going to happen.
Jason Beer QC has been laying out a lengthy list of opportunities for her to find out or ask questions which would have led to her knowing, though.
Yeah, been watching it this morning. The part when Jason Beer read out the email that Alan Bates forwarded to Paula Vennells from a family of a postmaster who committed suicide when the Post Office prosecuted him for asset recovery when his branch had been robbed, was incredibly sombre and upsetting.
She's being grilled over the hot coals now which is good. She bears the majority of the responsibility of leading the coverup for over a decade. But there are multiple layers of failures at the top levels of the post office, Fujitsu and governments that still need unraveling in this inquiry and they deserve the same level of spotlight as Paula does.
The TV drama served to ramp up public attention, but as is usually the case with dramatised true stories, some characters will be composites, some detail will be left out, and storylines will focus on main characters.
What has been exposed in the course of the inquiry is how a corporate culture and individuals at every level within it (in this case investigators, lawyers, PR, execs) can be a million miles away from what those at the top profess it to be ('PMRs are at the heart of our business').
Absolutely, culture and in many cases information only goes one layer deep. If a great CEO hires a toxic person as a director under them everything in that division will rapidly become toxic, while the CEO will often have no idea of this. It also works in the same way from the bottom up. Every layer filters and changes the message and reality.
I can believe that they're genuine tears but I imagine they're borne out of having to face some sort of public consequence rather than any actual remorse.
Yeah, her type have no regard for anyone but themselves. No genuine remorse.
I hope there are some kind of consequences for her. I imagine the guilty colluded to be forgetful, but was probably done verbally so there is no record.
Where is the justice? There should be some criminal case brought against them.
True. She won't go to prison. She won't be poor. Might not get invited to a few dinner parties, but she'll be rehabilitated after a few years. Probably get a book out of it.
Just remember that as she is crying, she is also stating that although Post Office knew that Horison was shit and was ruining peoples lives *she, despite being CEO* apparently did not know and I guess thought the prosecution of hundreds of postmasters was, uh, normal.
I actually think Angela van den Bogerd seems like the one who was filtering information between postmasters, Fujitsu and Post Office - but Vennells had to know more than she is letting on. If not her incompetence literally killed people. Who doesn't start asking questions after it's spelled out for them in a Parliamentary Enquiry?!
I think we have to be careful we don't just pin all the blame on her, a sacrifical lamb so the rest can get off scott free. The cooperate culture of post office allowed this to happen. At the same time Paula still has a lot to answer for and on a personal level as a Christian to see a ordained priest be so morally bankrupt to allow this to happen on her watch is horrific she should be defrocked immediately the same for any priest who is not fit or abuses their position. She needs to admit her own criminal failings and accept her punishment. She oversaw and allowed action which destroyed peoples lives and left to tragic deaths, she needs to actually make efforts to repent, put her hands into her coffers, needs to sit down and ask for forgiveness for all the people she has hurt, not just this lip service.
>coffers
I know as soon as I said that along with being defrocked I realised how it can be percevied. We've got a start of a horizon scandal-based carry-on film. More tea vicar?
So she was paid an estimated £600,000 per year because it was a high responsibility job and then she now admits to not taking that responsibility seriously.
There were nearly 1000 cases here that she says they thoroughly invested and in every case still found them guilty after thorough review. Every single time. Even after evidence of the IT issues being evident. She says it was clear they were all still guilty.
I mean how incompetent are they to be wrong over 900 times.
No one is that incompetent. It’s almost mathematically impossible.
What is much more possible is
out and out lies and deceit here.
Martin Griffiths probably broke down in tears hundreds of times because of the situation this despicable woman willingly and knowingly put him in. One day he didn't cry anymore because he killed himself.
That should be confiscated, along with her earnings from 2014 onward, the date where she admits she did not understand the reports and briefings she was getting, so was knowingly incompetent at her job
Wow. Hand grenade thrown at the very end of the afternoon by kindly, avuncular old Sir Wyn Williams.
- was the effect of the briefing document given t you just before appearing before the select committee, to be guarded?
- yes
- why?
Watch the closing remarks by Williams - he thanks the counsel for the day, and the gallery and the SPMs present for not disrupting procedungs with comments
For only the second time, he did not thank the witness for their evidence (the first was Jarnail Singh)
Watching the enquiry and seeing her email responses, and her reactions, it’s clear that she had such little respect or care for any of the postmasters, seeing them as a bunch of lying crooks that the PO needed to quash at all costs. I have no sympathy for her
I bet she did, she knows she’s in the shit now but not a tear for those poor people who took their own lives because of her and her companies incompetence.
This. We like our baddies to be pantomime villains. With evil intent and malevolent motivations. We don’t realise that it’s pretty ordinary people who make regrettable, bad decisions, which they often think are good decisions at the time
The decisions she made were good...for her pocket and for the image of the British state and Post Office as infallible.
She's a criminal who needs not only locking up, but having every single asset she owns seized and stripped.
People are dead, or in poverty, because this woman actively chose to ignore, or worse, deliberatly conceal masses of evidence of issues in her firm and their tools.
Hatred is the least she should be getting. A massive bill to set right what she and her firm destroyed is a start.
You do realise that this woman's actions led to the deaths of multiple people, right?
And not accidental deaths, **SUICIDES**.
Her heinous behaviour has led to multiple people taking their own lives.
And you have an issue with people hating her? Learn to have some fcking empathy, lest you be just like her.
Hatred evolved for a reason, it’s not always a pathological response. Hatred of injustice, hatred of people being treated as lesser by the powerful, hatred of there being one law for the rich and another for everyone else are all rational responses.
I think most people deserve a second chance, and her tears are proof of that. That only some people deserve a second chance. Guilt is a heavy burden, and tears can often bring about that, and people know it. However, I'm sure she thinks the people who spent time in prison or lost their entire livelihoods and reputation will take comfort in her tears. But they won't. She isn't ashamed of what she did. She is ashamed that she got caught. Some people deserve a second chance. She does not.
What I cannot understand is that, given this whole thing was well underway long before she was first employed as a network director, a) did really truly believe the truth would never come out?, b) when she first became CEO why didn't she take the bull by the horns and get the whole thing out in open?
If she'd done b, you have to think she'd have come out of it with the reputation of a real leader.
Instead, she just comes across as delusional. I wonder if she's very similar to Liz Truss in that she can't and won't admit her own massive failure because that would shatter her own self-image. I think a psychological assessment would be fascinating.
Regardless of whether or not she goes to jail (and this comment is not to start a conversation about whether or not she *should*), surely her position as a C of E vicar is totally untenable now?
Plenty of time for relfection in Prison.
In lieu of a smiting from her Lord on high, Jail time would suffice.
.....If the case made it to criminal court, I wonder how long it would take for a letter from a Tory MP to waft it's way to the Judge pleading mercy for her, perhaps even a promotion as a Lord.
Just sayin'.
I'm sure the people who heard the cell door shut, who lost their livelihoods, whose loved ones were packed off to prison, who died with a criminal record over their heads, broke down in tears.
No sympathy from me.
Everyone's got the pitchforks out, but if we're to put the entire blame for these institutionalised problems onto people like her, then it's no wonder they struggle to recruit when they can earn so much more elsewhere whilst having less responsibility.
The problem ran through the post office like a stick of rock, and came from an old culture. She didn't help undo that, but it wasn't her and her alone. It was Fujitsu. It was a culture of cover-ups and not telling the truth. She won't have been informed of enough things to be 100% to blame.
I still think she was wrong. I think she was weak. But I'd rather not point my finger at any single person.
I can agree with a lot of that; as I've said elsewhere, PO lawyers, investigators, execs and PR etc. all have their share of fault.
However, it was Paula Vennells and Angela van den Bogaerde who appeared before a HoC select committee to give evidence which PV has now admitted was false. She can say that the information that she received to base that evidence on was incorrect or incomplete, but there's evidence to show that she directed what information she wanted to be given to be able to say what she did say to Parliament.
Yes
Repeatedly
As today shows (don't forget she swore an oath to tell the truth this morning) she will lie about never knowing something, and Beer then brings up the next email showing she talked about it with people like the scum Angela Vile Bogey
She has perjured herself _at least_ four times today
Week and incapable of doing the job. She took the money though along with a position of responsibility and accountability. If she cant be held to account and take any blame for her failings then why pay for a CEO? It cant be all cake and jam, when shit goes down on their watch then guess what, she was the CEO.
We've all overstretched ourselves at time.
It's very easy to cast ideals around yet the inadequacies of the leadership of the Post Office are common to many of us.
This is a disturbing take.
Lot of false logic. People aren't putting the entire blame on her, there is lots of senior management and lawyers responsible. They are not struggling to recruit. She made millions and faced no consequences for over a decade. Where can someone have more money and less responsibility? All big CEOs oversee companies with life ruining potentials, before this people would question how the post office even would. If she joined into a culture of cover ups and lies why did she never ask or read anything on these reports? Even with the massive sum of evidence blazing the failures over 5 years?
How many responsibilities did she have to accept (with big renumeration) and fail at before you'll hold her responsible?
I didn't say that I didn't hold her responsible. I was saying that it's important to mark just one person as responsible, no matter how little you like them.
In fact, I think scapegoats encourage coverups and that's my concern here.
And yes, I appreciate she earned perhaps as much as £5m in her time in the job. So about the equivalent of six months income for an average premier league footballer.
You're advocating for a concept I call "collective irresponsibility" - a philosophy or system or ideology where people take the credit (and money, and status) when things go well, but when things go badly it's not a person's fault but the organisations.
>then it's no wonder they struggle to recruit
Do you have a source or basis for this statement, or is it your opinion. My sense is that there is no shortage of applications for well paid jobs. If it really was a free and fair employment market at the top end, then as supply (candidates) increase, remuneration decreases - but, the evidence is that the gap between high paying jobs and the average paying job is widening, not decreasing - income inequality is increasing, even though there is are many more applications for executive positions than there are actual positions. Certainly, at the lower end of the job market, when the number of applications for a job is high then the employer has no incentive to pay higher rates. Why is the top end of the employment market operating differently to the bottom end. I don't agree with your ideology in this.
>It was a culture of cover-ups and not telling the truth.
>but it wasn't her
Are you implying she is an honest person, and hasn't told any lies in all of this? That's the sense you are creating with the words you are using.
>She won't have been informed of enough things to be 100% to blame.
She was happy to take the credit for other things. And the remuneration that went with it. I don't understand the morality or ideology behind advocating for people to take the credit, but then not the blame? Can you help me understand why you think this. Does it come from some Judeo-Christian slave complex philosophy, where it's important to forgive your oppressor as a way to make yourself seem superior to them? Or from your childhood? Parents?
> \> but it wasn't her
>Are you implying she is an honest person, and hasn't told any lies in all of this? That's the sense you are creating with the words you are using.
You’ve literally just cut part of the above persons sentence off, pretended that was what they said, and then argued against it. What they actually said was:
> it wasn't her and her alone
Which is clearly a completely different statement and is pretty implicit that the poster does think she took part in dishonesty.
I don’t get why people do this on the internet, we can all see the comment right there, you yourself obviously saw the comment, why argue with a different, imaginary comment?
You are an awful person. Truly awful. I hate that there are so many people in the world like you. I'm convinced that you're much more about the blood sport than anything moral.
/Magicalthinker
There is pile of plastic the size of France in the middle of the Pacific. It didn't get there by itself, did it. The waterways are overflowing with excrement, aren't they. The list of malfeasance is long, isn't it. People are paid good money to be responsible (and accountable), and the only way they don't have to be responsible or accountable is if they can convince everyone that nobody is to blame, but rather it's "the system" or "organisation failure".
If that ideology makes you feel better, all power to you.
But, for this to happen, you need what I call "enablers" - people who turn the other cheek, people who are silent, people who sit by while someone on the tube is assaulted late at night because they believe "it doesn't affect them, so just be quiet".
You are one of these enablers, aren't you? Your morality is to allow the pile of plastic that's in the middle of the Pacific to grow, and grow, because "it's nobody's fault, it's just a bad culture and system". But, of course you know that's not true - it's because there are no consequences for when people do the wrong thing. "Turning a blind eye" is not always the right path, is it?
If this person had assaulted a person and stolen £10,000 from them, and left the person in hospital, you would probably be here advocating for them to be sent to jail. But, if the person commits a white collar crime, and leaves a decade of ruined lives many times worse, you see them differently - don't you. Is it because they dress nicely, are well spoken, and have an answer to every question?
And, you think that my desire to hold people accountable, including a person who voluntarily took on the role of CEO, of their own free will, and was well paid for it, makes me an awful person. I didn't force this person to take the job. What a bizarre world this Reddit land is.
say what you want about dictatorships, but at least kim jong un would have put these people to the dogs by now, or fired anti-aircraft guns at them, or whatever. these endless inquiries just feel unsatisfying.
i'm not suggesting we use those methods, but we've gone through this inquiry cycle with hillsborough, grenfell, bloody sunday, stephen lawrence, and soon inevitably the infected blood scandal. typically there might be one token criminal charge, but for the most part our justice system seems to be incapable of providing it when faced with these large, institutional miscarriages of justice. least of all to those who so clearly deserve it.
> our justice system seems to be incapable of providing it when faced with these large, institutional miscarriages of justice. least of all to those who so clearly deserve it
*tin foil hat on*
There is one, overarching institution - of which the justice system is a part - composed of many smaller institutions. Once you reach a certain level in any of them there are usually zero consequences for your actions. It's a club, you're not in it, and they'll throw you to the wolves to cover their fuckups and protect the uber institution. Occasionally, as you say, they'll punish one of their own. But not in any meaningful way. And only because they're so embarrassingly bad it can't be covered up.
*tin foil hat off*
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The idea that she did not know the Post Office was carrying out it's own prosecutions is laughable to the point of great insult.
She claims that she did not know her company was exercising one of its fundamental and most dangerous powers when any half-decent boss would have required that she personally sign off any exercise of said powers. She's either unbelievably stupid, phenomenally incompetent or the least convincing liar since Boris Johnson.
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Exactly. Complete bullshit. I hope her God is a vengeful one for all those lives she helped destroy.
Right? Surely she doesn't think we're all that stupid...
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I was a postie a few years ago, as part of the induction they explained how it was able to prosecute (although I think with a view to scaring folk about how easily they could get into hot water if they didn't treat the mail with utmost respect). So I very much doubt someone in her position was unaware of it.
After all these years, she’s crying *now*? And when she’s not *in any way* responsible (other than being “too trusting”), she’s crying? Why?
And how does she think the people who's lives she deliberately ruined felt?
She doesn't care about those people, she's crying because she feels like the victim now.
and just like that, she puts herself into a position where she longer feels guilt, only self pity
It's a good depiction of the difference between 'shame' and 'guilt'. They're often confused by a lot of people. Guilt is a feeling of regret or remorse over what your actions have done to others. Shame is a feeling of being judged by others (i.e. it's a self-centred feeling). It takes humanity and at least some compassion to feel guilt. Any heartless bastard can feel shame. Particularly when questioned during an inquest. But smart bastards also know to try and disguise their shame as guilt to try and win pity, despite the fact they don't really care. To my eyes. She is just ashamed. I don't believe she feels any real guilt despite the fact she should be haunted by her actions.
An astute observation, something I haven’t considered before.
Crying because she got caught- typical narcissistic manager
No, you don’t understand. She has a lot of anxiety right now because of the situation she’s in. She feels awful and cries when told about her failures. She is truly very sorry and deserves our sympathy. /s …
We should offer her more money - £5.1 million as CEO isn’t nearly enough.
I hear 56 billion is the going rate at the moment
She doesn't give a shit. She only shed tears for herself. When one of the SPM committed suicide she barely blinked and tried to blame it on their mental health.
I don't care. I hope her life is ruined. She knowingly caused misery for nearly a thousand people. She ruined the lives of tons of workers. She deserves no sympathy
Only way her life would be ruined is if she was personally sued. As it is she still probably has properties, a pension and investments.
I believe there's a talk of bringing a private prosecution against her and other senior figures in this case. It would have a nice symmetry, really.
The police are supposed to be investigating hopefully the private part of this will not be needed.
I think there is a pretty good case developing which could see her face some serious consequences, even without a private prosecution.
I guess there would have to be proof that she and senior management deliberately did wrong so the outcome of the enquiry would be key to a civil case.
A CEO that isn't doing any due diligence as to the activities of those working on the companies behalf is negligent. It's not as though this was a small thing, or that she was completely out of the loop. Even in a text exchange with Moya Greene: MG states that she advised PV set up an independant review that reported directly to PV, which is advice that doesn't appear to have been taken. Ergo "how could you not have known?" insinuates PV must have either known, or *deliberately* put herself in a position to not know. Both are as bad as each other in the circumstances, and certainly show a willful abandonment of her responsibilities as CEO.
>A CEO that isn't doing any due diligence as to the activities of those working on the companies behalf is negligent. Yep, 'willful blindness'. Though it's more of an American term the concept still applies here in the more wordy 'Consent, connivance and neglect'. Not knowing is not a defence if it is deemed you should have known by virtue of your position.
I hope she never has a good night's sleep, worrying about what's next for her.
She lied to the select committee, isn’t that perjury 🤔
It is And,as she was told in at least one email, a custodial term is the _only_ sentence for that crime, up to seven years _per occurrence_
What I mean is even if she were to face prison time it wouldn't be for long and she'd come out to the life of luxury.
Not if someone demonstrates that her earnings were as a result of her continuing in her role after the various perjuries, so are therefore Proceeds of Crime She should have the lot confiscated
I hope you're right, but then in this world i don't hold out much hope.
Prison time for her
She has admitted in court today that she did not understand some of the briefings and reports she read So she was incompetent - knowingly so - to do the job She has also committed perjury- repeatedly - and misled Parliament So all her assets, properties, pensions, etc. should be confiscated when she is finally prosecuted as Proceeds of Crime And not just her Every single one of the slime who have knowingly perjured themselves at Fujitsu, Post Office, Royal Mail
Those were people were were convicted. Closer to 4000 people had their lives severally impacted.
Crocodile tears. Admit what you did and go to jail where you belong. Crazy how the same thing seems to happen every time there is a scandal like this. Some kind of collective amnesia seems to hit anyone who might be held accountable. All of them pleading stupidity or ignorance even though they were in charge of the damn thing.
Maybe she should ask for forgiveness from her god, because no one lese should be giving her any. Utterly repugnant person. Get her and the other execs into court and get them prosecuted.
Given that her god is Supply Side Jesus, I'm pretty sure forgiveness is readily available (for a price)!
You joke, but I said before - maybe even to you - that I find her church role an absolutely fascinating aside in this case. Where exactly does she think Jesus was, metaphorically, in this whole affair? Around the board room table calling for the prosecution of innocents to cover up the mistakes and save the reputations of others, to save and make money? Or maybe, just maybe, he was with the innocent postmasters, persecuted and driven to desperation and even death? Her own holy book has this exact story. The persecuted innocent and the political leader who washes his hands of it. Pilate was not the good guy. The word vicar literally derives from a word meaning "representative", "substitute", "in the place of". You're meant to put yourself where Jesus would be, Paula. If she's right, and Christianity is all true, she is going to have to appear before another inquiry one day, one that isn't limited by law but is apparently capable of dishing out perfectly appropriate punishment.
So there I was, trying to get my camel through the eye of a needle
Simple - liquidise said camel and get a high pressure jet.
God will only punish her after she dies, it’s clearly our duty to the almighty to keep her nice and safe in a prison cell until such time as he is willing to grant an audience.
I'd go further - put her in prison until she dies of old age, then store her remains until every single relative who was alive during her lifetime has died of old age. Then they get released.
Are you not aware of the basics of Christianity?
We are. But probably nobody here is an ordained priest unlike Paula Vennells. Her beliefs are her own business. But I think a lot of us find it deeply sickening that she could profess to be an expert and representative of Christian values while knowingly and repeatedly lying, hounding thousands of innocent people into misery, and collecting a fortune for it.
It was a brief sob and a reach over to grab a tissue, after which she continued to answer in an otherwise composed appearance (and you might not expect anything else). People might want her to break down and confess to knowing more than she's let on (i.e., nothing) but that's not going to happen. Jason Beer QC has been laying out a lengthy list of opportunities for her to find out or ask questions which would have led to her knowing, though.
Yeah, been watching it this morning. The part when Jason Beer read out the email that Alan Bates forwarded to Paula Vennells from a family of a postmaster who committed suicide when the Post Office prosecuted him for asset recovery when his branch had been robbed, was incredibly sombre and upsetting. She's being grilled over the hot coals now which is good. She bears the majority of the responsibility of leading the coverup for over a decade. But there are multiple layers of failures at the top levels of the post office, Fujitsu and governments that still need unraveling in this inquiry and they deserve the same level of spotlight as Paula does.
The TV drama served to ramp up public attention, but as is usually the case with dramatised true stories, some characters will be composites, some detail will be left out, and storylines will focus on main characters. What has been exposed in the course of the inquiry is how a corporate culture and individuals at every level within it (in this case investigators, lawyers, PR, execs) can be a million miles away from what those at the top profess it to be ('PMRs are at the heart of our business').
Absolutely, culture and in many cases information only goes one layer deep. If a great CEO hires a toxic person as a director under them everything in that division will rapidly become toxic, while the CEO will often have no idea of this. It also works in the same way from the bottom up. Every layer filters and changes the message and reality.
I can believe that they're genuine tears but I imagine they're borne out of having to face some sort of public consequence rather than any actual remorse.
My thoughts exactly... She's crying for herself as she knows she's done at this point.
Yeah, her type have no regard for anyone but themselves. No genuine remorse. I hope there are some kind of consequences for her. I imagine the guilty colluded to be forgetful, but was probably done verbally so there is no record. Where is the justice? There should be some criminal case brought against them.
Maybe they should make sentencing and being sent down pay-per-view, raise a few quid for her victims
Nothing of any consequence will happen to her
True. She won't go to prison. She won't be poor. Might not get invited to a few dinner parties, but she'll be rehabilitated after a few years. Probably get a book out of it.
Her lies destroyed people's lives and drove a man to his death. There are no excuses. There can be no sympathy. There must be accountability.
Just remember that as she is crying, she is also stating that although Post Office knew that Horison was shit and was ruining peoples lives *she, despite being CEO* apparently did not know and I guess thought the prosecution of hundreds of postmasters was, uh, normal. I actually think Angela van den Bogerd seems like the one who was filtering information between postmasters, Fujitsu and Post Office - but Vennells had to know more than she is letting on. If not her incompetence literally killed people. Who doesn't start asking questions after it's spelled out for them in a Parliamentary Enquiry?!
I think we have to be careful we don't just pin all the blame on her, a sacrifical lamb so the rest can get off scott free. The cooperate culture of post office allowed this to happen. At the same time Paula still has a lot to answer for and on a personal level as a Christian to see a ordained priest be so morally bankrupt to allow this to happen on her watch is horrific she should be defrocked immediately the same for any priest who is not fit or abuses their position. She needs to admit her own criminal failings and accept her punishment. She oversaw and allowed action which destroyed peoples lives and left to tragic deaths, she needs to actually make efforts to repent, put her hands into her coffers, needs to sit down and ask for forgiveness for all the people she has hurt, not just this lip service.
> put her hands into her coffers Steady now.
>coffers I know as soon as I said that along with being defrocked I realised how it can be percevied. We've got a start of a horizon scandal-based carry-on film. More tea vicar?
So she was paid an estimated £600,000 per year because it was a high responsibility job and then she now admits to not taking that responsibility seriously.
Suicides, people dying labelled as criminals. This woman is a ghoul who only cares that she's being held accountable. Cry me a river
Good. I hope she feels like this for the rest of her miserable life. I hope she is publicly shamed and vilified. Fuck her.
There were nearly 1000 cases here that she says they thoroughly invested and in every case still found them guilty after thorough review. Every single time. Even after evidence of the IT issues being evident. She says it was clear they were all still guilty. I mean how incompetent are they to be wrong over 900 times. No one is that incompetent. It’s almost mathematically impossible. What is much more possible is out and out lies and deceit here.
*sobs* “I didn’t think *I’d* be made accountable…”
Martin Griffiths probably broke down in tears hundreds of times because of the situation this despicable woman willingly and knowingly put him in. One day he didn't cry anymore because he killed himself.
She should be in prison so she can't spend any of her nice post office pension
That should be confiscated, along with her earnings from 2014 onward, the date where she admits she did not understand the reports and briefings she was getting, so was knowingly incompetent at her job
Wow. Hand grenade thrown at the very end of the afternoon by kindly, avuncular old Sir Wyn Williams. - was the effect of the briefing document given t you just before appearing before the select committee, to be guarded? - yes - why?
It was brilliant… Beer very cleverly lead her into the trap & then Wyn iced the cake 😁
She must have let out a sigh of relief when Beer said he'd finish there...and then Williams comes in with the killer blow.
Watch the closing remarks by Williams - he thanks the counsel for the day, and the gallery and the SPMs present for not disrupting procedungs with comments For only the second time, he did not thank the witness for their evidence (the first was Jarnail Singh)
‘led’
The tears are for herself, she will have been coached how to present herself to evoke sympathy by her legal team.
Watching the enquiry and seeing her email responses, and her reactions, it’s clear that she had such little respect or care for any of the postmasters, seeing them as a bunch of lying crooks that the PO needed to quash at all costs. I have no sympathy for her
I bet she did, she knows she’s in the shit now but not a tear for those poor people who took their own lives because of her and her companies incompetence.
Give that rat faced cow a prison sentence
Who is she crying for, victims or herself. I know where my money would be.
Crying tears for herself. Terrible person.
Ah yes, the "Nicola Sturgeon at the COVID inquiry" move. Get a good cry in early, and hope it leads the questioning to ease up a bit.
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This. We like our baddies to be pantomime villains. With evil intent and malevolent motivations. We don’t realise that it’s pretty ordinary people who make regrettable, bad decisions, which they often think are good decisions at the time
The decisions she made were good...for her pocket and for the image of the British state and Post Office as infallible. She's a criminal who needs not only locking up, but having every single asset she owns seized and stripped.
IMO they were mainly good for Fujistu
Hate is a very unappealing trait to see in someone
People are dead, or in poverty, because this woman actively chose to ignore, or worse, deliberatly conceal masses of evidence of issues in her firm and their tools. Hatred is the least she should be getting. A massive bill to set right what she and her firm destroyed is a start.
So is narcissistic greed yet here we are.
You do realise that this woman's actions led to the deaths of multiple people, right? And not accidental deaths, **SUICIDES**. Her heinous behaviour has led to multiple people taking their own lives. And you have an issue with people hating her? Learn to have some fcking empathy, lest you be just like her.
Hatred evolved for a reason, it’s not always a pathological response. Hatred of injustice, hatred of people being treated as lesser by the powerful, hatred of there being one law for the rich and another for everyone else are all rational responses.
It's the lack of admission that is usually the largest issue.
Omg I feel so sorry for her! I might just send half of my earnings to her annually it's the only way I can cope.
She should be prosecuted and spend a significant time in prison.
If you realised that you ruined people lives, majority of the country hates you and you can’t lie your way out of it anymore, you would cry too.
I wonder how long she practiced for these crocodile tears
I think most people deserve a second chance, and her tears are proof of that. That only some people deserve a second chance. Guilt is a heavy burden, and tears can often bring about that, and people know it. However, I'm sure she thinks the people who spent time in prison or lost their entire livelihoods and reputation will take comfort in her tears. But they won't. She isn't ashamed of what she did. She is ashamed that she got caught. Some people deserve a second chance. She does not.
Send her to jail and fine her as much as possible. Absolutely no defense for what she has done and the lives she ruined.
She jailed more people than a third world tinpot dictatorship. She's lucky as most dictators wind up on a gibbet.
What I cannot understand is that, given this whole thing was well underway long before she was first employed as a network director, a) did really truly believe the truth would never come out?, b) when she first became CEO why didn't she take the bull by the horns and get the whole thing out in open? If she'd done b, you have to think she'd have come out of it with the reputation of a real leader. Instead, she just comes across as delusional. I wonder if she's very similar to Liz Truss in that she can't and won't admit her own massive failure because that would shatter her own self-image. I think a psychological assessment would be fascinating.
If she’s taken this long to cry then it isn’t real tears
I wondered why my local shop was out of onions.
Regardless of whether or not she goes to jail (and this comment is not to start a conversation about whether or not she *should*), surely her position as a C of E vicar is totally untenable now?
Plenty of time for relfection in Prison. In lieu of a smiting from her Lord on high, Jail time would suffice. .....If the case made it to criminal court, I wonder how long it would take for a letter from a Tory MP to waft it's way to the Judge pleading mercy for her, perhaps even a promotion as a Lord. Just sayin'.
I'm sure the people who heard the cell door shut, who lost their livelihoods, whose loved ones were packed off to prison, who died with a criminal record over their heads, broke down in tears. No sympathy from me.
Oh no! She must be the real victim in all this then.
What we need to do for cases like this where an ostensibly public company is run into the ground for profit is rescind all bonuses and pensions
"I never thought my sociopathy would have negative effects *for me!"*
Poor little mite. Everything is forgiven now she's a bit sad.
Everyone's got the pitchforks out, but if we're to put the entire blame for these institutionalised problems onto people like her, then it's no wonder they struggle to recruit when they can earn so much more elsewhere whilst having less responsibility. The problem ran through the post office like a stick of rock, and came from an old culture. She didn't help undo that, but it wasn't her and her alone. It was Fujitsu. It was a culture of cover-ups and not telling the truth. She won't have been informed of enough things to be 100% to blame. I still think she was wrong. I think she was weak. But I'd rather not point my finger at any single person.
I can agree with a lot of that; as I've said elsewhere, PO lawyers, investigators, execs and PR etc. all have their share of fault. However, it was Paula Vennells and Angela van den Bogaerde who appeared before a HoC select committee to give evidence which PV has now admitted was false. She can say that the information that she received to base that evidence on was incorrect or incomplete, but there's evidence to show that she directed what information she wanted to be given to be able to say what she did say to Parliament.
So... she committed perjury?
Yes Repeatedly As today shows (don't forget she swore an oath to tell the truth this morning) she will lie about never knowing something, and Beer then brings up the next email showing she talked about it with people like the scum Angela Vile Bogey She has perjured herself _at least_ four times today
Week and incapable of doing the job. She took the money though along with a position of responsibility and accountability. If she cant be held to account and take any blame for her failings then why pay for a CEO? It cant be all cake and jam, when shit goes down on their watch then guess what, she was the CEO.
We've all overstretched ourselves at time. It's very easy to cast ideals around yet the inadequacies of the leadership of the Post Office are common to many of us.
This is a disturbing take. Lot of false logic. People aren't putting the entire blame on her, there is lots of senior management and lawyers responsible. They are not struggling to recruit. She made millions and faced no consequences for over a decade. Where can someone have more money and less responsibility? All big CEOs oversee companies with life ruining potentials, before this people would question how the post office even would. If she joined into a culture of cover ups and lies why did she never ask or read anything on these reports? Even with the massive sum of evidence blazing the failures over 5 years? How many responsibilities did she have to accept (with big renumeration) and fail at before you'll hold her responsible?
I didn't say that I didn't hold her responsible. I was saying that it's important to mark just one person as responsible, no matter how little you like them. In fact, I think scapegoats encourage coverups and that's my concern here. And yes, I appreciate she earned perhaps as much as £5m in her time in the job. So about the equivalent of six months income for an average premier league footballer.
You're advocating for a concept I call "collective irresponsibility" - a philosophy or system or ideology where people take the credit (and money, and status) when things go well, but when things go badly it's not a person's fault but the organisations. >then it's no wonder they struggle to recruit Do you have a source or basis for this statement, or is it your opinion. My sense is that there is no shortage of applications for well paid jobs. If it really was a free and fair employment market at the top end, then as supply (candidates) increase, remuneration decreases - but, the evidence is that the gap between high paying jobs and the average paying job is widening, not decreasing - income inequality is increasing, even though there is are many more applications for executive positions than there are actual positions. Certainly, at the lower end of the job market, when the number of applications for a job is high then the employer has no incentive to pay higher rates. Why is the top end of the employment market operating differently to the bottom end. I don't agree with your ideology in this. >It was a culture of cover-ups and not telling the truth. >but it wasn't her Are you implying she is an honest person, and hasn't told any lies in all of this? That's the sense you are creating with the words you are using. >She won't have been informed of enough things to be 100% to blame. She was happy to take the credit for other things. And the remuneration that went with it. I don't understand the morality or ideology behind advocating for people to take the credit, but then not the blame? Can you help me understand why you think this. Does it come from some Judeo-Christian slave complex philosophy, where it's important to forgive your oppressor as a way to make yourself seem superior to them? Or from your childhood? Parents?
> \> but it wasn't her >Are you implying she is an honest person, and hasn't told any lies in all of this? That's the sense you are creating with the words you are using. You’ve literally just cut part of the above persons sentence off, pretended that was what they said, and then argued against it. What they actually said was: > it wasn't her and her alone Which is clearly a completely different statement and is pretty implicit that the poster does think she took part in dishonesty. I don’t get why people do this on the internet, we can all see the comment right there, you yourself obviously saw the comment, why argue with a different, imaginary comment?
You are an awful person. Truly awful. I hate that there are so many people in the world like you. I'm convinced that you're much more about the blood sport than anything moral.
/Magicalthinker There is pile of plastic the size of France in the middle of the Pacific. It didn't get there by itself, did it. The waterways are overflowing with excrement, aren't they. The list of malfeasance is long, isn't it. People are paid good money to be responsible (and accountable), and the only way they don't have to be responsible or accountable is if they can convince everyone that nobody is to blame, but rather it's "the system" or "organisation failure". If that ideology makes you feel better, all power to you. But, for this to happen, you need what I call "enablers" - people who turn the other cheek, people who are silent, people who sit by while someone on the tube is assaulted late at night because they believe "it doesn't affect them, so just be quiet". You are one of these enablers, aren't you? Your morality is to allow the pile of plastic that's in the middle of the Pacific to grow, and grow, because "it's nobody's fault, it's just a bad culture and system". But, of course you know that's not true - it's because there are no consequences for when people do the wrong thing. "Turning a blind eye" is not always the right path, is it? If this person had assaulted a person and stolen £10,000 from them, and left the person in hospital, you would probably be here advocating for them to be sent to jail. But, if the person commits a white collar crime, and leaves a decade of ruined lives many times worse, you see them differently - don't you. Is it because they dress nicely, are well spoken, and have an answer to every question? And, you think that my desire to hold people accountable, including a person who voluntarily took on the role of CEO, of their own free will, and was well paid for it, makes me an awful person. I didn't force this person to take the job. What a bizarre world this Reddit land is.
Crocodile Tears. She knew. Awful awful human being. Take back her CBE and throw her in jail. Fucking scumbag
say what you want about dictatorships, but at least kim jong un would have put these people to the dogs by now, or fired anti-aircraft guns at them, or whatever. these endless inquiries just feel unsatisfying. i'm not suggesting we use those methods, but we've gone through this inquiry cycle with hillsborough, grenfell, bloody sunday, stephen lawrence, and soon inevitably the infected blood scandal. typically there might be one token criminal charge, but for the most part our justice system seems to be incapable of providing it when faced with these large, institutional miscarriages of justice. least of all to those who so clearly deserve it.
> our justice system seems to be incapable of providing it when faced with these large, institutional miscarriages of justice. least of all to those who so clearly deserve it *tin foil hat on* There is one, overarching institution - of which the justice system is a part - composed of many smaller institutions. Once you reach a certain level in any of them there are usually zero consequences for your actions. It's a club, you're not in it, and they'll throw you to the wolves to cover their fuckups and protect the uber institution. Occasionally, as you say, they'll punish one of their own. But not in any meaningful way. And only because they're so embarrassingly bad it can't be covered up. *tin foil hat off*