mr bates vs the post office

@chrismac I think it’s a shame she didn’t become Bishop of London. That would have been great.

Honestly she’s lucky that the election is taking attention off her. Her performance at the enquiry is pitiful execrable.

The is a group of people in society who don’t care about others. Literally, do – not- care. They would drive past a fresh road traffic accident and feel no emotion. Obvious club members are Boris, Trump, Braverman, Musk etc. But we need to add people like Vennels to this club. She knew sub postmasters were being locked up, she knew they were taking their own lives, she knew families and finances were being destroyed and she knew their were unanswered questions about Horizon. She had the power to stop it, to ask questions, to pause prosecutions, to probe more. Yet she did nothing, because she did not care.

I’d love to see some scientific analysis of these people. Wire them up to stress monitors and expose them to trauma videos, I reckon the dial would barely flicker.

I’d like to see them wired up to the National Grid by their genitals. Then see their reaction.

@Kramer. Her behaviour is certainly in line with the senior clergy. They are very good at taking peoples money and making half hearted feeble apologies when caught

She’s a definite case  where you can tell when she lieing- it’s whenever her lips move.

A lot of old emails being brought up during this and causing problems for people.

Much like the government switched comms to self deleting WhatsApps to evade freedom of information and inquiries, I wonder if organisations will now out of caution be deleting all emails after some number of years.

 I wonder if organisations will now out of caution be deleting all emails after some number of years.

Yes its now pretty routine to have a default email retention period with the ability to manually mark to retain longer. Length depends on paranoia and in some cases legal requirements

There are more smoking guns than a Waterloo reenactment society get-together.

Vennells is a coward, and has used religiosity to build up a veneer of unjustified self confidence that she is always ‘doing the right thing’. It is so deeply ingrained in her that she can justify pretty much anything to herself.

The temptation for the cross-examining lawyers to grab her by the shoulders and shake her must be overwhelming.

But, in the long run, she’ll be fine. She won’t do any jail time, she won’t end up in penury. My bet is she’ll disappear overseas at the end of this and live out her days in a degree of comfort.

Also, isn’t it incredible? These so-called ‘christians’ – whenever they are exposed they all seem to have missed the day at god-school where the bit about not bearing false witness is covered. 🤔

I wonder if organisations will now out of caution be deleting all emails after some number of years.

As you note, government swapped, conveniently, to WhatsApp. I reckon that’s where a lot of the director-level naughtiness goes on nowadays. It’s highly unlikely the likes of Johnson would be the first to realise anything. Ever.

I wonder if organisations will now out of caution be deleting all emails after some number of years.

One of my previous employers (nobody contentious) introduced this as policy almost 20 years ago. A right PITA it was.

I thought it was rather telling, showing her contempt and disdain  with the scowl she gave when those in the room groaned at another of her weak responses.  A little slip that said alot to me.

Mr Beer though, I could watch him all day! 🙂

Dude deleting email doesn’t delete it from the back end systems. However senior management and board of megacorps are beholden to shareholders so stuff can disappear. WhatsApp of course is entirely off grid which is why it should be made an offence (in some manner) to use these sort of comms for official business. It’s evident that it’s being used NOT for convenience but because it’s off-grid / out of band.

WhatsApp of course is entirely off grid which is why it should be made an offence (in some manner) to use these sort of comms for official business

The US SEC fined the major financial corporations a total of about 2 billion dollars for not enforcing rules about not using whatsapp etc vs the approved systems with logs.

“Also, isn’t it incredible? These so-called ‘christians’ – whenever they are exposed they all seem to have missed the day at god-school where the bit about not bearing false witness is covere”

Or being self serving shitbags that are in it for the love of money at the expense of whomever happens to cop for it.

some pretty damning evidence at the enquiry today

Yeah – yesterdays evidence was pretty shocking (but expected), surprised that the media haven’t run with it as much as the could but then there are other things happening at the moment and maybe public interest is wavering a little now.

It’s cirtainly becoming more and more the ‘upper management’ scandal rather than ‘horizon’ .

Yesterdays interview of a postmistress on Jeremy Vine is worth a listen – from about 43min

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0020233?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

She makes many a good point about how postoffices are currently run, especially rural and isolated offices (like mine). Our office actually makes 4p a first class stamp and 2p a second – the postoffice, although it’s what we are known for would not exist without our retail side which is actually the part that pays the bills. Our postoffice is run on commission and makes the shop around £4-500 a month.

Chief executive’s of Fujitsu today….

No one will pay for this clear crime,  I have stopped watching it will end up the same a Steven Lawrence case dragged out for years then no one prosecuted.

I hope I am wrong.

I don’t believe it was ever meant to? https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/publications/terms-reference

But watching some of the grillings it’s easy to forget, and have an impression that some justice is in progress.

I hope I am wrong.

I would love for you to be wrong but sadly I doubt it.

I think there is a possibility of one or two people getting prosecuted for perjury (the ones the judge at the initial acquittal trial asked the cps to investigate because their evidence in the “successful” trials was  rather dubious to say the least) but beyond that I dont think our laws were written to handle this sort of scenario and hence, unfortunately, they will go free.

Compensation will go some way to redress the losses that were financially made, maybe even go further if the scheme is compensating for the pain and suffering.

It won’t bring back the years of (prime of) life for some of them, having a chunk of cash now you are too old to enjoy it, or that your kids could have enjoyed while growing up, etc, isn’t a huge compensation. And it won’t bring Martin Griffiths back to his family.

It also won’t repair the hurt of a being a community postmaster that was ostracised by their community and friends because – well, the legal system can’t get ti wrong, can it? Having to leave your village or town, or having people that were your friends cross the raod to avoid you or talk behind your back.

If there’s no actual legal ramifications for the Vennells, Van den Bogerds, etc., of this world then am I saying I hope they step in front of a bus, of course not. Do I hope that every gathering they go to, even their own family gatherings, people know what they did and cold shoulder them in the same way the postmasters were. Could I treat a friend the same after they’ve done this, I don’t think so.

I dont think our laws were written to handle this sort of scenario

I think there’s plenty of legislation that covers what we are all sure happened: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/public-justice-offences-incorporating-charging-standard

the difficult part might be getting smoking gun evidence that ties it to the controlling minds.  I dare say if vennels was to be brought in front of a Jury that her lawyers would understandably try to argue she has no chance of a fair trial given the media coverage.

I assume the solicitors’ regulatory authority etc may also have an interest in the various professionals who have helped make a bad situation worse.

It won’t bring back the years of (prime of) life for some of them, having a chunk of cash now you are too old to enjoy it, or that your kids could have enjoyed while growing up, etc

Indeed. Jo Hamilton had 5 cleaning jobs and her husband was forced to work full time until the age of 70. I think I read that his health isn’t too good. These 2 will never get their time back. They are just one of many families who have suffered. It’s utterly disgraceful (I’m being polite).

I hope that we have some sort of reform within the post office as well asap. Ideally post office ltd should be disbanded and some sort of co-op or employee ownership introduced. PO ltd are the cause of the candle and  has been an outdated management system of the service for decades.

As I’ve said before it’s not just about the 900 convictions – all remaining 11,500 postoffices have been affected.

I’m hearing lots of stories of independent retailers with failed sales mid negotiation or huge devaluation of their business due to the scandal. Couples coming to retirement having shut their postoffices as they can’t find a buyer etc.

Just here to thank monkeyboyjc for sharing his inside knowledge 👍

monkeyboyjc – I’m not sure that its the solution you would hope for, but given the community importance of the post office I think it should probably be brought fully under government control – directly as civil servants not as a Ltd Co.  They could then genuinely be one-stop-shops for all government-citizen interactions.

I see they’ve managed to **** up again though by listing the names and addresses of everyone convicted on their website!  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd110nl7dppo

I think it should probably be brought fully under government control

It’s interesting seeing the different party options on the PO with the GE coming up. All have said they’ll do nothing until after the enquiry and essentially it’s ‘settled down’ pr wise.

Personally I can’t see it being run any better under civil service management. But they cirtainly need to rip up the current management structure.

I may have said this in this thread before, but over 10yrs ago I worked as a project manager for a large supermarket, I used to manage retail refurbishments and new builds. I’d direct site meetings usually as the sole rep of the supermarket, we are talking between five to seven figure sum budgets.

Post office ltd would attend site with sometimes upto 6! middle management staff all with different job titles. Their proportion of the refurbishment rarely exceeded 25k (& much of their proportion of the work our shop fitters undertook). My experience is that PO ltd has historically spent money like water on staff they don’t need.

Contrast that to my experience of actually running a post office, in almost 8 years we’ve seen an area manager twice…… Both times things were promised, which have never happened.

Personally I can’t see it being run any better under civil service management

Oh, I’m in no doubt that it doesn’t really matter what the structure is – if you allow the culture to exist then situations like this can arise.  I’ll bet there are plenty of government orgs, quangos, charities, private companies and public listed ones who if they were they were truly honest would see that their organisation has the same culture and approach and is just one decision away from this sort of debacle!  BUT it just feels like the leadership thought they were running a commercial business rather than a public service.

Only just watched this.

If you haven’t, do.

Does anyone have any factual updates? Any comments from new ministers? Ta.

There’s a follow up show on itv on Monday

Ta! Looks like 9pm.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gqd7zrxqno

{Loved up emoji} Good old Branson.

That’s properly heart warming.