Post Office Inquiry: Former CEO accused of ‘living in la la land’

we're here, let's go, here we go, people, pay the bonuses, pay your bonuses, someone shouted, barring a withdrawal, this is the third day of three days P, the bonuses come back today, the opportunity for the lawyers representing the Sub

post

masters got caught up in illegal jargon, they did. for example with Mr Ed Henry KC demanding why Paul Lenel allowed innocent sub

post

masters like Lee Castleton to be falsely prosecuted and you did not instigate any investigation into why £321,000 of public money was used to crush and grind him. m I agree with what you are saying thank you Lee Castleton in North Yorksh lost his business months

living

in his car trying to find work today he and all the other victims VI IMS have their wrongful convictions overturned by Parliament Ed Henry pressed on this is La La Land, isn't it?

Is it not so that you led through deception, manipulation and the weaving of words to the reality you desired? I was trying to address a culture in the organization that I found was command and control where people couldn't speak their minds and couldn't speak, so Sam Steen casc also for the sub postmasters opened problem after problem with the computer system Horizon, all of these came one after another, bang bang bang, attacking the Horizon system in late 2013, there could have been no doubt. Miss Venel that the Horizon system needed an investigation needed an investigation needed a thorough investigation and review, do you agree Miss Venel Mr.

Steen I wish we had done that, I absolutely wish we had done that? I still had confidence in the Horizon system from the moment the queries were heard. the fact that it was working for most people I hadn't understood it didn't have the details that I have today and if I had my point of view would have been very different, you failed didn't you, you didn't get into this. in your account you couldn't ask the right questions you couldn't bother you could miss phel the risk was too great looking under that rock you're going to find a problem that will devastate the post

office

ruin it you couldn't let that happen could you miss phel ?

I loved the post

office

. I gave it to her. I worked as hard as I could to deliver the best post office for the UK SS. postmasters were optional mandatory a sub postmaster in the room was optional and those subs so sorry no people should not shout from the public gallery otherwise they will be removed 2014 this afternoon a witness statement revealed how the post office works Communications director Mark Davis dismissed bankruptcy, suicides, forced imprisonment of subpostmasters as difficulties and lifestyle problems, while right-wing Joe Hamilton unfairly prosecuted , watched the investigation and heard Paula Vel's comments a few days later about Ms.

Hamilton's appearance on television, but I was more. bored that indignant and with audible groans Joe Hamilton lacked passion and admitted false accounting on TV were triumphalist comments and now you regret it because you are here oh I completely agree. I apologize to Ms Hamilton and I am deeply sorry for being so rude to you in that email which left her again shouting for you to pay her your bonus Paula Venel earned £5.1 million in her time as Post Office Master almost 400,000 of them on performance related bonuses Alex Thompson reporting well with me here now are two of the wrongly

accused

deputy postmasters Janet Skinner and Lee Castleton thank you very much for coming now you were both there today listening to Paula venel give evidence there were tears there were apologies it's that what you needed expected expected um I think the comment I liked today was um how How much you love the post office.

She loved it so much that she helped destroy it. Well, it's true. The other. For me. Tears. She will never cry as much as our family does for the pain she has caused. This could have stopped 10 years ago. all the information in front of her 201 in 2013 if she just looked at the answers instead of not asking the questions this would be over I mean the answers knowing that what is that? I mean, you went to jail. I did, yeah, um, I think. you just sit there, I mean, we had a little forward empathy on Wednesday, didn't we?

Because of the fact that she was sitting there and they were throwing all this hate at her, which must have been quite isolating for her, but you At the end of yesterday and today I know that empathy just fell off a cliff because there was just no nothing there and I think it's really hard for me to understand how you can read an email in a particular way and then try to argue all these years later that it wasn't written that particular way and that it's just false, It is very painful to hear it. I mean, there seems to have been a pretty big disconnect there, for example, she seemed very upset today. crying on several occasions and the tone she had adopted at the time in those emails, we particularly looked at this one about Joe Hamilton's appearance on television.

He was more bored than outraged. I'm just wondering which one you think is the most genuine. I think the way Tim Malone originally read it. When you wrote an email 10 years ago, I think it would go back into the public domain. I think it's pretty hard to argue that he didn't actually do it. She didn't say she didn't mean it that way, but it's hard to change the meaning of an email. It's been 10 years and I'm absolutely sure it was strong leadership in her mind, disrespectful and disgraceful behavior. I mean, she appointed several people to her leadership team, she seemed to be suggesting that they had failed her, in fact, where do you think the executive director was?

It was her job to gather that information. She was on top of it. chain, she should have been aware of everything that was going on, from what I can see, literally everyone is overpaid and underqualified because none of them seem to know, she said the book ends with her, and that's what you know . all the answers were there, it's just that she didn't recognize them, so I mean, I saw you interviewed before the investigation started. Is it fair to say that you seem angrier now than you did at the beginning? I did it because at the beginning I was.

You know I actually sympathized with that, but now after listening for the last few days, everything that was done made me angrier because at the end of the day she was the one in the position, she was in charge and I was. In fact, I thought she would come and give better answers and to be honest, all I think she did was tell him a bedtime story. Where should this go now? I mean, the question is about the fact of what responsibility looks like. Well, it's about people. take the information that is now written in the investigation and be able to look at that and decide what punishments are required for all the different people, but it can't just be about that, it can't be the scapegoat of one person, it can't be that there are more of a person fully involved, but when you talk about responsibility, are you talking about public relations?

There has to be and I think what we've noticed is that there are a lot of inquiries when they come to a head, there's never just one person being held to account. Yes Yes. It's very bad in this country, they do it, I think so and you would like to see people go to prison. I think it should change. I went to prison for being in charge of a post office. Now all these people have been in charge. I keep saying 11,800 post offices, but where is the responsibility? I mean, very briefly, you know this comes at the end of the blood investigation.

Reports absolutely decades, years, decades of cover-up. Disgraceful behavior. What effect does it have on your trust in institutions? You would imagine the general public must do so. Look at what's going on in all the scandals and think what we're doing spending all this money on these investigations with no accountability at the end. Please don't forget that this is after we always do things after people have already suffered. We have to suffer terrible, terrible things to get to a point where there is an investigation and yet people could intervene and prevent this from happening with proper governance and know that there is good news today: the overturning of convictions .

That's what I mean, I think you know what it is. I wonder, is this really good news for people that I'm involved? It would not change. I wouldn't change the way my conviction changed. He was putting three FRs out of three. judges and that would just change that way I, but you smile Le absolutely yes, yes, but it doesn't change ours, no, my case still stands as a matter of um, the court and, um, hopefully, one day I'll get let that be cancelled. We'll have to end it there, but I thank you both so much for coming.

Thank you so much.