Post Office Inquiry: Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells gives evidence - Day 3

[@michaelmouse4024]

I am getting increasingly forgetful so I am starting to think that I might once have been a PM, MP, newspaper owner, Duke of York or CEO at the post office.

[@fireskycam9889]

5:09:00 I bet she'll be bored in the prison cell.

[@sweatymrkim4578]

Jail her.

[@robinwas-miles9686]

And re-brand.

[@mariesimpson7613]

On another point, if I was being tried in a criminal case I would want Sir Wyn Williams to be the judge!

[@BrendanMacWade]

Days 1 and 2 set the table. Today was the grilling. I feel the fire all the way from New York. That last round of questions from the Hudgell team was a stroke of brilliance. It started off respectfully, and questions were easy. Then the temperature slowly went up. By the time Vennells was presented with part of the cover-up documented in her annual self-assessment, she was impeaching herself with every answer. That's worth a re-watch.

[@robinblick9375]

This beats any TV drama...The anger ... in fact hatred...is as real as it gets.

[@chiefweazel]

'Paula Vennells' would make a good brand name for a new non-stick frying pan! :)

[@cynthiasimpson2745]

I can’t stop laughing 😝

[@iansmith-hughes691]

People's lives were destroyed by this woman's action or lack of it. No sympathy for her. She knew what was happening and tried covering up. Shame on her. Disgraceful.

[@robinblick9375]

Mr Beer K.C: 'Please state your name.' Paula Vennells: 'I'm so sorry {Long pause] I can't recall it.'

[@Vultoor]

I haven’t seen any footage of questions of where Vennells is asked why the insurers were called in. That’s key in the timeline

[@gwynethgallen8946]

Venal. But she was never going to do a mega mea culpa. We know why. She had a long time to finesse that performance.

[@Dungshoveleux]

Gives evidence? Forgets evidence, more like.

[@lipseeboohay430]

Nice to see the last word going to Jo Hamilton .

[@WELLBRAN]

I can't recall ...oh that's alright then

[@robinblick9375]

She keeps stopping mid sentence, then starts another that bears little or no relation to the first.

[@paulmoran217]

She cries a few times........many started crying backaways and still are. The buck stopped at her desk; and she failed to respond. If the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, incompetence is present. Her salary?....massive. Her competence?... miniscule. The only redeeming feature is there must be others who failed her.

[@robinwas-miles9686]

But there is a cunning approach to her carefully considered answers. She likes words, self-beliefs, laying off duties and responsibilities, avoiding reliality and playing her team in a way that is so devilish and masterful. Staying in her job/s whilst making a packet. I'd say she had a robotic ability to play her moves accordingly. To not come clean in this enquiry despite all the evidence, and balancing her own wishes to protect the PO and Fujitsu and continue as long as they did was perversly a masterclass of disception.

[@Harlequin1951]

02:05:23 Under the bus time! One of those people named is now in Australia and she refused to attend this enquiry. Another has gone missing and nobody knows where he is. I do wonder whether the Rev Vennells might now be considering moving to a country with no extradition treaty with the UK! 🤔

[@fireskycam9889]

The rats are all scurrying around looking for a way out

[@vaughanlockett658]

Chosen on merit of course and not to fill a agenda.

[@mariesimpson7613]

I was thinking today about when each of these PO bosses actually realised that Horizon was faulty and had caused these miscarriages of justice. There are probably two dates, one when they actually knew or suspected the problems were real and one when they officially knew.

[@fireskycam9889]

These were not "Bugs" that could manifest themselves intermittently. They were known bugs that were there permanently and could have been addressed. Instead, she sought for a way to describe them as something that they can't manage or do anything about by the description "Manifest themselves". Thus a cover up.

[@andrewedwards6233]

How did she ever get her first job with the PO as network director given that she knows nothing about IT?

[@user-cy4fz7mo7v]

When the bully gets bullied. And make no mistake this horrible woman is a bully and all her cronies knew damn well what was going on .In complete denial. Judas

[@fireskycam9889]

She constantly says that she didn’t mean what she wrote. The most dislexic CEO ever

[@paulhall8146]

I really enjoyed this display. It’s wrong to close it

[@Witsiz]

Was there a court summons here? Did she have to attend this? If not, it was a Sui side act to go! Why would she do that? All I’m saying!

[@keithripley7481]

Because it’s statutory inquiry the judge can order people to attend under the inquiries act 2005.. the 1 person who as refused can do so because she lives abroad

[@laxeystu8096]

I think that the context is that they are under police investigation so they have to be careful as to what they say, but they may also feel under pressure to appear to be cooperative to the enquiry because that may be helpful in terms of sorting out what they should be charged with Turning up to this and saying 'don't know' or 'can't recall' to every question may get them through this but might be detrimental in the police consideration later. Not sure how that works.

[@SpencerLao]

she's getting proper carved up.

[@laxeystu8096]

Three good lengthy questions from the leading barristers That's the best that we can do, short of prosecution in court

[@julieviollet1657]

She is clearly been Teflon coated, as nothing appears to stick to her.

[@MrDerbee]

What if a man turned on the water works at the crucial moment?

[@tonyjones7372]

I would ask how many times in her career progression has she melted into tears during the thousands of meetings she must have attended and chaired to get the level she did.

[@robinblick9375]

That lady in the blue dress on the right...her smile suggests to me that her revenge is sweet.

[@fcarstens6161]

Paula Vennell is married...?? Her husband must be blind.....

[@robinblick9375]

Never 'yes or 'no' but 'I don't believe I did' or 'I imagine I did'. Obviously she has been briefed to use these eliptical responses. as indeed were the three university Heads interviewed by the US Congress over their repsonse, or rather lack of it, to campus anti-Semitism.

[@robinblick9375]

'I know nothing about that, or anything else except the size of my salery and bonuses. After all, I'm only the boss.

[@Scott-up3bq]

Just worked out who vennells looks like.gonch gardner from Grange hill.does anybody agree.my wife thinks I'm losing the plot.

[@lw3646]

Cruella de Vil....

[@robinblick9375]

lady in blue...if looks could kill...

[@robinblick9375]

Philibustering...zero content.

[@mariesimpson7613]

I thought mr stein was a bit too aggressive with some of his questioning. It doesn’t help your concentration when being spoken to like that. I’m not complaining about the words he used, because I thought he summarised her previous answers very well, it was the level of aggression in his voice. I would not cooperate with someone speaking to me like that.

[@Rachel_PureBold]

It was probably frustration caused by her continuous softly spoken obfuscation. Exasperating!

[@Will-nn6ux]

She very much deserved that tone. This may be the closest to a criminal trial she ever receives, and she was required to cooperate.

[@mariesimpson7613]

@@Will-nn6ux I hope she does get criminally charged, and I think she should go to prison. But I personally didn’t like seeing her bullied like that. Giving evidence shouldn’t be a punishment.

[@fireskycam9889]

I agree

[@laxeystu8096]

​@mariesimpson7613 The softly spoken Mr Moloney didn't question her like that She's clearly misrepresenting what happened and being put under pressure is perfectly appropriate in this case She presided over a regime that bullied and crushed SPMs relentlessly year after year, it was a disgrace

[@jimcowley330]

Oh what a crooked Web we weve when we practice to deceive.