Paula Vennells

We know there were several involved.
Some have been interrogated.

More needs to be investigated about what was going on at Fujitsu.

I think there is an organisational culpability so trying to make Vennell the sole culprit to be made to pay back millions personally and be sent to jail as suggested by some on this thread is, at best, a somewhat unsophisticated knee jerk reaction.
Mind you, judging by some responses, I could see them happily knitting as the guillotine fell

From a professional standpoint, I would like to see the lawyers involved in this brought to book. A solicitor I saw being interviewed this morning was talking about their lack of professional ethics. A man of the old school like me.

Aveline

Latest news -29 suspects now identified as being involved in this scandal. Vennell is only one of many.

Some have given evidence, others to come.

However, Ms Vennells was in overall charge, she was the CEO. She does try to give the impression that she was kept out of the various loops. I don't think that is true unless stupidity is a valid defence.

Latest news -29 suspects now identified as being involved in this scandal. Vennell is only one of many.

She keeps making excuses:

I wasn’t told
I didn’t know
I wasn’t aware
No one told me
I blame so and so…..
I can’t remember

What on earth was she getting paid for? She benefited from a huge salary over the years and was supposedly in charge, so should have been well briefed. If not, then yet again, that proves that she wasn’t capable of doing the job, as a good CEO will choose appropriate deputies to make sure that they are well informed.
I’d like to see her told to repay all she took from the business, in the same way that the sub-postmasters were asked to repay. We know they were innocent - SHE is guilty.
I hope she goes to jail - at least she won’t be pregnant if she does.

I suspect that Paula Vennell's career was based on her wilingness to do what her senior managers wanted her to do and she was not bothered about what she did to junior staff in doing that.

She was probably chosen for the Post Offiice job for just that reason. The government wanted to privitise the Post Office and they knew that PV could be relied on to deliver the goods they wanted, even though that meant hiding the problems with the computer system and jettisoning the Post Masters/Mistresses unjustly hounded by prosecutions, bankruptcy and prison sentences.

I spent my working career in industry and I have seen several such managers, male and female. In the long run most of them come to grief sooner or later. PV just got further and higher than most, but even she is having her come uppance, which is in line with the enormity of the pain and humiliation she inflicted on innocent people.

Maya Angelou profoundly hit the nail on the head...

"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time"

That email she sent in December 2014, I think to the Comms Director, soon after a The One Show episode in which Horizon victims featured, including Jo Hamilton who was falsely accused of stealing £36,000 - that email is damning evidence of Vennells' true character.

“Not easy for me to be objective, but I was more bored than outraged.”

She was bored?, really?

The rest of the programme was "hype" and "human interest".

“Did the mask slip in this email, Ms Vennells,” Moloney asks.

"I made a mistake in this email" replies Vennells.

“Is the reality of what you said here that it reflected the behind-closed-doors attitude to postmasters?” Moloney continued...

The mask did indeed slip, this ordained priest not only had no care or compassion for the postmasters, she held them in contempt.

She showed us who she was.

Read the rest of the mail, and remember also how in 2013 she listed keeping the IT Horizon issues out of the Post Office privatisation prospectus.

Vennells' response?

She said the reference was not "helpful" and "could have been picked up and misinterpreted."

Isn't that just plain old dishonesty? There's growing evidence of a systems failure / malfunction, but keep it out of the prospectus?

- I have not one pinch of sympathy for her. Her tears are for herself, because now she knows that we know who she really is.

An ambitious, scheming and manipulative woman.

Those colleagues were asking to be 'thrown under the bus'. I'm not meaning to be some sort of apologist for Vennell but I thinks it's a much more complex picture than just it's all somehow her fault.

She did indeed Dickens. She also talked about having ‘worked on this’ ie the inquiry, for three years, committed herself to this. Her memory is a constant reminder that she’s got clear recollection of issues where she can throw colleagues under the bus - and no recollection of issues where she could be criticised.

During one of her crying jags she appeared to be using her 'devotion' to the Post Office - making it a successful brand - as a defence.

Having been aware of the plight of the Sub Postmasters for many years, watched the documentary, drama and the Inquiry I am certain Paula Vennells put profit before truth and was instrumental in trying to suppress the truth thereby contributing to years of suffering, and in some cases deaths of Sub Postmasters, their families, their children. She's incriminated 5 colleagues, but she being CEO set the agenda and the cover up.

I suspect was parachuted in to a very complex pre existing shambles. Of course she should have been able to get to the bottom of it but others had to cover themselves and the whole thing spun out of control.
The programme designers and salespeople sold a dud product and kept covering up. Whoever decided to buy the programme and commit vast sums to pay for it also had to cover their error of judgement up. Vennell arrived after that. Incompetent she may be but she's not the only person to blame.

winterwhite

I see no point in prison for PV and her colleagues. Considerable amounts of community service would be far more to the point, and more useful.

I agree, these people have been exposed and their lives as they knew them are over.
Prison should be for people who pose a threat to society. I don’t see any of them finding the kind of employment where damage could be done, especially P Vennells

If she can be prosecuted the community service seems a better use of our criminal justice system

Maggiemaybe

Actually, Computer Weekly first reported on the scandal in 2009.

Vennells didn’t become head honcho of the Post Office until 2012. There must be others who need to be held to account as well.

Many others I should think, including Fujitsu staff.I know the buck stops at the top but think this scandal should bring retribution down on a lot of heads.

Blackwit

I’ve been dipping into this inquiry and all I’m hearing is ‘I don’t recall/ I wasn’t told/ no-one showed me this/ it was someone else’s responsibility. What management skills does Vennells have? Where was the oversight? They all (particularly the legal team) appear to be inept and unprofessional at the very least. I think they all believed they’d never be held to account for the untold damage they caused.

Thank goodness for Mr. Bates. Old Vennells didn't reckon with his memory and brains. I can still remember the drama and how the actors portrayed what the PO masters/mistresses suffered, I was in tears watching it, it made me so sad that they were helpless against the 'might' of the PO

Totally agree

Urmstongran

I didn't know, I wasn't told , and if I was told I didn't understand it - a very slippery individual.

If she was that thick she should never have been given the job. IF she didn't understand what was being said to her she should resigned, especially as she has "memory issues"; lying moron that she is.

Grantanow

Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

That sounds right because it is exactly what she did. She knew Fujitsu was not working properly and lied. She was the CEO and allowed those calling the helpline to be told that they were the only person with a problem. Her arrogance and bad memory will never be forgotten. She did not care about the people suffering, IMHO she is evil.

Namsnanny

I have no sympathy for her. Zilch, zero.
But let's not forget all those who oversaw this fraud.
17 (?) Ministers, at least. How I wish they could pay for their part in all this.

God bless Computer Weekly, Private Eye, and Alan Bates.

Totally agree. Mr Bates deserves a medal.

I see no point in prison for PV and her colleagues. Considerable amounts of community service would be far more to the point, and more useful.

Gillycats

It’s also on BBC News Live. We’re watching it. All I can think is, how, just how, do people in charge get away with lying, cover ups, contempt for employees and customers, and get huge salaries to do so. Sorry, not sorry, is what I’m getting here. Those poor poor Post office employees. How did it take a TV programme, a decent solicitor, MP and a postmaster with determination to get this investigated. Paula Vennells and her henchmen and women need to be jailed and stripped of their assets to see how it feels. It’s a national disgrace.

I like the sound of stripped of their assets. When I watched Mr Bates on ITV I was shocked that so many post office people were not believed and lost so much. Time to turn the tables.

nanna8

She should be in jail. Telling lies, fraud and destroying peoples’ lives. A real con woman.

Could not agree more and she expected to become a bishop! I watched her on the tv news crying and all I could think about was the Mr Bates drama and the man who threw himself under a lorry. Plus of course all the others wrongly accused. Any decent CEO should know what is happening; I think she is a liar.

I agree. There is surely another enquiry going on as to how this bug, anomaly (or whatever ) was created and where the money went. Devilment in Fujitsu or design? The deficit amounts did not seem to show any definable pattern as you would expect from a computer surely? therefore human intervention from the IT in Fujitsu? A fraud syndicate maybe? So much more to be answered I'd say.

Thanks ladies