Paula Venells’ Post Office testimony: ‘astonishing announcement of her ignorance’
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- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
- “She was either telling the truth but displaying an incompetence of gargantuan scale, or she was not telling the truth.”
Pauls Vennells' testimony for the Post Office inquiry was an “astonishing announcement of her ignorance,” says Lord Arbuthnot.
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I honestly do not understand how corporate culpability works in the uk. I spent 36 years working off shore and 20 as a ships captain. There was nothing that happened on these vessels I was not responsible for. No excuses about I didn’t know, or someone else did something. It was my job to know what was going on and who I was employing. Any serious matter could have resulted in me being suspended, fined or imprisoned whether I was directly responsible or not. How these spineless slugs are allowed to weasel their way around and evade giving truthful answer makes me sick to my stomach. Every single person in the PO & Fujitsu hierarchy should be serving hard jail time along with along with forfeiture of assets
The bosses always get away with it. I don't think there is any liability law (except for the ordinary people of course).
Excellent analogy - and I’m sure your crew and customers felt more confidence in your leadership as a result.
It's a game. The more money you've got, the longer you can stay in the game. Hallelujah 🙏
Well said!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, Christ knows how they got through University not being able to remember anything
Given her admitted lack of knowledge, can we please have her £700k per year salary back on the basis of total incompetence
Perhaps she did not read a newspaper or watch the news? Poor soul was unaware of the MANY prosecutions undertaken by the Post Office and which THE COUNTRY knew about!
She doesn’t sound too bright
All it proves our University Educated Elites Cannot think outside the box . “ Do as your told not as I do but as I say !”
Its a case of given the job and ridiculous salary because of who she knew nothing to do with her ability then her main priority is justify the ridiculous salary by pretending everything is great and ignoring the sinking ship around her.
She chose to be willfully ignorant.
A practised and accomplished liar.
Bet she would REALLY cry if she were locked up
Lies & deceit old fashioned Post Office practises
WHEN and for How many years NOT IF!
@@trevorhart545 I admire your confidence. As for me, I doubt it.
It's not a criminal trial. It's an enquiry under oath.
She appears to be a psychopath.
I am a Canadian who has been following this story for some time. I feel such empathy for the people whose lives were destroyed by this scandal.
Are you following this in Canada, if so how, I have friends there who would also like to follow the inquiry?
I have been watching from Australia on RUclips. First came across the story while listening to Steve Lehto a Michigan lawyer on RUclips. He was sent the story by someone in the UK, this was before the ITV drama🇦🇺
Until people go to prison this will continue. In all levels of society.
Until the right people go to prison, you mean. Sub-postmasters went to prison. But they shouldn't have.
That Paula Vennells testimony in full :
"I was in charge, but I didn't know anything, and nobody told me anything".
Nurenburg all over again
and “too trusting”. Ie place the blame on someone else. Ghastly woman.
..and I didn’t want to know if it affected my bonus .
That's what they're all saying. I don't recall, I don't recall..... I don't recall. Absolute liars trying to save their own skins, whilst blaming others.
You forgot to add “and they paid me big bucks & bonuses to not know anything”
I don't believe a word that she says.
But she is a Christian, and Christians don't lie 🤨
And I’m pretty sure she doesn’t believe a word that she says either.
same here
She should be forced to pay back her bonuses and spend the rest of her life in prison with the rest of them at the top of the Post Office and Fujitsu.
Who was it that pushed the Fujitsu system after the post office tried to decline to implement it
Lock her up.
No,make her pay financially and brand her a lier,and her dog collar must be removed.
@@malcolmleyland7610 THEN lock her up for the rest of her life. Along with all the others who did this. They all knew.
Jason Beer is just amazing. So patient in the face of such dissembling. His forensic questioning, polite yet unyielding is a revelation. He deserves every penny of his fee. The post office seems to have been run by a bunch of incompetent amnesiacs.
I think there may be rules he has to follow in regards to the inquiry. I'm sure there are times when he wants to scream at all of these people. Core participant lawyers don’t hold back though🇦🇺
No, not amnesiacs, just liars
The common theme of this inquiry is that nobody read any email, remembered any conversation or had any reason to question anything at all. Really! Do they really think their comments are believable? It is disgusting and I really hope legal proceedings are very close. This must never be allowed to happen again.
She relied on plausible deniability without understanding what plausible is!
"Too trusting"....except for the innocent people you sent to jail.
This
I was a postman for 28 years and was actually proud to wear the uniform , I’m retired now but always quick to tell others that I worked for the GPO, The job was based in honesty , I don’t know why but I feel very let down by Paula Vennells ,thanks for taking that proud feeling away from me .
She's absolutely lying. I'm from BG and if an engineer was sacked EVERYBODY KNEW ABOUT IT from upper management to grass roots. How on earth can they be prosecuting hundreds and she doesn't know. A complete liar.
Actually I believe she said she knew about prosecutions but did not know extent - also she said she did not know PO had prosecutorial power until 2012
I think the problem at the the top of our institutions from Banks, Post Office NHS etc is arrogance & contempt for the people or the public the ordinary people it's abhorrent & wicked & usually covers up gross incompetence as in this case
Bloody well prosecute the liar... Oh and crocodile tears.
They were selfish tears.. getting upset because what was being uncovered was SO bad, it looked bad, it sounded bad - to put it mildly, and being found out by everyone in the world made her cry , but I doubt it was in shame, it was in fear of being prosecuted and ending up in jail herself!
@@JaniceNattress Sadly i don't think anyone will spend a day in prison
@@BrianFairlambI saw Lord Arbuthnot being interviewed on another channel earlier & he said that prosecutions are very likely so fingers crossed he is right.
“The Post Office knew that, I completely accept it. Personally, I didn't know that” you WERE the Post Office for Christ’s sake🤬🤦🏻♂️
If she doesnt spend the rest of her life in jail with all her wealth given to the victims there is no justice.
The English "establishment" will look after her as they always do.
She's going for the excuse of incompetence rather than the truth of her criminality.
She knew exactly what was happening and conspired to cover it up she should be on trial and end up bankrupt and serving a prison sentence like the innocent postmasters did ...
This demonstrable sociopath is upset solely because she's cornered.
yes
Sge has been caught!
The forensic accounting firm told her the software was flawed back in 2013! She fired them.
Yes, that is very damning against her indeed. I look forward to her being confronted with questions on this point.
It was known from the very start that the software was flawed. It was detected in the early stages of testing. The vendor knew, the Post Office knew.
Isn't she now ordained in the Church of England. If so, it just gets worse.
She fired them because she is severely allergic to facts. She is enamoured of fairy tales and lies.
@jeanne90275 : Because it was not the answer she wanted to hear .....
She’s lying. When cornered and confronted with her vile actions she cried and played the victim card. 😡
Indeed - turning on the waterworks once you’ve been caught is pretty low - she had plenty of time and plenty of opportunities to do the right thing, and she didn’t. Either those tears are crocodile tears, or she’s crying for herself - she demonstrated by her actions when she could have helped, that she doesn’t care a jot about the postal staff.
Send her down. For a long time.
She is lying for God. 🤣
Woman's favoured response when cornered yet still won't admit guilt.
@@kevinmaltby4202 She is far too much of a sociopath to admit guilt.
@@K1lostreamthey were crocodile tears for sure she isn't sorry for what she did she's sorry she got caught and is now under the same massive stress the subpostmasters/mistresses were except they were innocent and Vennells is guilty
Prison = Accountability in this scandal. No question about it.
Take Her Away, she’s insulting our intelligence
It's no good all the people in charge pleading ignorance and escaping accountability when others lives have been ruined or worse
And she is a Preacher!!! If she told me the time, I would instantly buy a watch!
She's followed in the shoes of another preacher, the Archbishop of Canterbury, only found God after making £millions in big companies. They haven't a clue how ordinary people struggle. Odd that neither of them became ordained when they were young and starting out on life. How can you trust sanctimonious millionaire priests who live in ivory towers.
She wasn’t ignorant. She is a LIAR
ridiculous woman - does she really think we are going to fall for this tissue of lies!!
Yes!!!..she won't be jailed.
One: she does not and cannot think.
Two: she regards everybody else as fools.
Three: the only thing she knows how to do is to lie.
She's liyng. We should arrest her asap
She is trying to hide behind tears ,...PUT HER IN PRISON NOW
The astonishing thing about this enquiry is that the Post Office has behaved appallingly, but nobody seems to believe it is his or her fault. We keep hearing the mantra that "I did not know." or "Nobody told me." Paula Vennells was accountable for what went wrong in the Post Office, regardless of whether she knew exactly what was happening. I suspect Horizon may have been low on her personal priority list, so perhaps she gave it insufficient attention, or even considered it an irritant that wasn't important. If so, it was a grave error of judgement.
To call it a grave error of judgement is an understatement. It was a lethal error of judgement.
Vennels needs to be held accountable for her actions, she is covering her disgraceful back.
Liar and now found out. Knowing Guilt makes you cry!
Crying is a self service...she doesn't feel guilt...maybe remorse as it could end her life for the foreseeable future.
She knows her lies are being unravelled and it's only the start.
Her proclaimed ignorance is not credible.
I believe in UK law, ignorance is not a defence so, whether she’s lying or telling the truth about that, she ought to still get a lengthy prison sentence.
People’s lives were ruined, some to the extent that they saw no way out and took their own lives to make the misery stop, and she presided over it - if she knew nothing, she damn well should have realised SOMETHING was up because of the scale of it - I can’t think of a scenario where Vennells is not culpable.
I can’t imagine that she didn’t pick up any signals that there were serious issues/problems. Even if she was ignorant, it was here job to find out what was going on.
@@K1lostream The legal term for this behaviour is negligence, which is actionable in criminal law.
One of her duties was to know. She was being paid to know. Her performance amounts to criminal negligence, and people have died as a result.
Institutions are put above individuals in the UK.
She said she was unaware that the Post Office was a prosecuting authority...this would be high on the briefing/induction programme when she took control.
She's only crying as she is being held to account.
There were no actual tears, this witness appeared to cry.
"Oh, what a tangled web she weaves, when first she practiced to deceive"
Our country is riddled with these corrupt liars receiving huge bonuses for what,spineless cowards who need to pay for their actions and do some real work……
When you study change management, the first thing you learn is: the hardest thing to change is an organisation's culture. People are too comfortable and have too much to lose by it.
Obviously not fit for the job, return the salary.
Just what do you need to know to be a CEO?
Not a lot ,it seems 😂
She's continuing to lie.
There are two fundamental selection criteria for a CEO - honesty and competence. Venells lacked at least one, probably both. So, did she get the position on “merit”, or was it a gender-biased ‘DEI’ appointment? She was certainly one of the villains, but was she the ultimate villain?
Lying, both factually and emotionally, is the only thing she knows how to do.
Well her mouth is moving!!!!!!
@@anthonymorris2276 Well she didnt get it for her beauty thats for sure!
Yes, who is the main villain!
All those found to be lying need to be jailed. Simples.
She can afford plenty of holidays, to recover from this humiliation.
Being most polite called there as an ignorance.
When a blatent arrogance is more the truth.
'"I was too trusting" = I had no idea what I was doing, and I didn't ask my staff for straight answers. She is now trying to position herself as a victim, to obscure her own incompetence.
Hold these people accountable to disincentivize this type of behaviour. If the rewards are great and there’s little risk of accountability even if you’re caught why not take the risk. This woman ruined people’s lives for her own benefit. Her life now needs to be ruined in the same way. Part of the problem is that the decision makers in this case will have one eye over their own shoulders worrying about the sketchy things in their own past and not wanting to set precedents… It should be a jury of the common people deciding her fate, not a peer who has never felt the hardships of the rest of us who support them…
She can afford the very best legal advice.
It's not doing very well so far
Will those responsible go to prison?
Experienced executive ýes ! Intelligent woman .. yes ..
Liar .. yes..
Vennells remembers with great clarity anything that puts her in a good light, complete memory loss on anything that doesn’t. 🤔
Not uncommon at all for senior people to try and maximise later deniability to not ask important but difficult questions. On the other hand, she may just be lying.
The Sgt Shultz defence yet again.
“I know nothing
I see nothing
I hear nothing”
She and other execs didn't want to know how badly flawed Horizon was because it appeared to be doing exactly what it was designed to do. Increase profits by reducing losses which management all assumed was previously being stolen by subpostmasters. So when prosecution rates spiked, all the execs fooled themselves into believing it was proof that horizon was working as intended, that is to capture fraud. The last thing they wanted to accept was that horizon itself, the monster they created, was actually committing the fraud against innocent subbies. This is classic , head in the sand, corporate culture where nobody is willing to speak up about uncomfortable truths about ill gotten gains on their balance sheets. This toxic culture is what turns corporations into powerful psychopathic hive minds with disastrous consequences for it's victims.
Perhaps try easier questions like “do you know what a post office is ?” or ‘can you use the bathroom on your own?”
😂
Where does the BUCK THE STOP????????!!!
..and she thought giving back her medal would be enough ...
Chief executive job description: sit in my fancy office, go to virtue signalling meetings and wait for the bonus.
The tears were scripted to be turned on at the most difficult questions as a distraction . I'm NOT distracted , I'm listening to what she says not what she does .
None of these theatrics are working with me , and few (but the most GULLIBLE ) will be taken in .
She and a few more have conspired in a story that will get them off by muddying the waters .
It's skin crawlingly uncomfortable listening to her lies and seeing those false tears.
Give us a job I know nothing also
Given the vast costs involved in the prosecutions, it is incredulous to believe she wasn’t aware. As CEO she sat on the board where all the financial expenditures are analysed and explanations have to be given. There is no way that type of expenditure went unnoticed and unexplained. WE ARE NOT FOOLS
Of course, there had to be tears. Appalling.
Just look at her eyes! tells you everything you need to know about her!
That woman needs to be prosecuted. She is not thick and I believe she knew. Because of her inactions many peoples' lives were wrecked. Well done Vennells.
Yes indeed we do have organisations you can complain to they go under the name of the Ombudsman, if you've had the pleasure of trying one out you'll know how pointless it can be to raise an issue to an organisation whose paid by the company your complaining about! I have a lot of respect for Lord Arbuthnot and his role re SPM, but there will also be questions to answer by MP's / Government as to why they were asleep at the wheel.
How did she get the job if she nothing about anything 🤔
She got the job because she is female
The tears were real? Maybe if she visualised a prison cell.
Big surprise? When do the people at the top and getting the big money ever take real responsibility for their actions ?
What a liar
The thing that is incredible is the CEO’s get rewarded for failure.
Its how Britain works,and one of many reasons my parents left in the 1970s not much has changed
Prison. NOW
Couldn't the government do to her as she did to others? Freeze her assets, invent a figure that she owes the government, if she doesn't pay 'send her down'... Well, should do that in any case. A more disgraceful spectacle, I have never seen.
“All we need is more women in charge! They’ll fix everything”. Right.
What happened to the money the Postmasters had to repay? If it wasn't actually due, which seems pretty much to be the case, how was it placed in the PO's accounts? Is there a tax fraud? Is there also false accounting?
8:15 The answer is we can't. We've been asking the same question every time some sort of crisis arises, be it financial, criminal, procedural -- you name it, this "I wasn't aware" default response by senior managers and executives never changes. It all boils down to the fact that 90%+ of people in senior positions in government and industry are 1) incompetent and 2) hugely overpaid, not just in this country but throughout the world. People just aren't as smart as everyone assumes them to be from the titles they are given.
Lying about what the father told her on the call to save her/POL. Despicable.
Someone who runs an organisation and doesn’t know that part of it prosecutes its own staff sounds just a bit dubious ….
THE outcome will be "Lessons will be learned " ..followed by "Lets be clear" ..."Crystal clear" clear this and clear that .. Case closed.....and everyone will live happily for ever after ..oh and Paula Vennells will be the next prime minister ..
I've never heard a breakdown of prosecutions numbers before Horizon and how they compare with after the introduction of Horizon. What baffles me is the idea of people taking money they knew they would be made to repay. Alarm bells should have rung with management very early on in the use of Horizon software. But I guess they had dug a big hole and could only keep digging.
Good God!!! Imagine her of all people calling the family of one of her suicide victims. The woman has no shame!!!
That is what comes of being a shameless little .
Crying because she’s been found out. Lock her up for the crimes she did commit, unlike the poor people she sent to jail.
And those who committed suicide on her watch.
As Arbuthnot alluded to there is a missing link in the credibility and therefore chain of causation behind the motivation for PV taking such personal risks.
They thought they would never get caught. As simple as that.
Venells should get an Academy Award nomination for that performance if ever I have seen one.
The last 10 mins of today's inquiry was just bloody.
That's what the media should be focusing on
It’s all academic, when you’re the CEO you’re accountable. Doesn’t make the slightest difference whether you admit you know or not.
Paula Vennells: "Accountable? What strange word is this?"
Deny, Deny, Deny. Evasive and untruthful testimony even now. She was the CEO for gods sake she would have known if the ladies lav was short of bogroll, to make out she was uniformed about the singularly most important operational failures of the company is laughable. Anyone of that staggering amount of incompetence had no right running the Post Office so which is it? I think we all can gather from the facts.
I can't remember,I cannot recall,I believe so.
How do we stop organisations behaving like this in future? How about we start by selecting the best candidate that is available for the job rather than the one that ticks the right boxes?
It's Jason Beer KC Counsel to the enquiry
When she's not claiming ignorance, when cornered by the evidence she claims she does not remember.
I’ve been on the board of two Plcs, and either it’s totally impossible of her not to know. However, it’s quite clear that the quality of people in senior positions in the private sector is extremely poor.
The CEO’s are talent that has to be well rewarded. But now we find they have no idea of whats going on. They also have poor memories.
Where is Adam Crozier in all this it was apparent on his watch the debacle of horizon, Paula inherited this situation, she is obviously not ceo material, where's Adam Croziers emails and correspondents, of his time when under the umbrella of royal mail😮
She talks about ‘The Post Office’ as if it was a completely different entity from the one she was in charge of. Just bizarre!