Reverend Vennells, of the Post Office disaster

[Lilith7]

And now it seems she's blaming everyone else. How unsurprising.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/arti...ce-scandal

Paula Vennells, the former Post Office chief executive, has named five executives who she said were to blame for the Horizon scandal, including a missing IT expert and a former in-house lawyer who has refused to appear at the public inquiry.
During a third day of tearful evidence in front of the inquiry, Vennells denied she had given “craven and self-serving” testimony but readily provided the names of those she claimed had let her down.

Vennells, who was the head of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019, has repeatedly claimed in evidence that she was denied information from her senior staff, and argued that she was “too trusting” of key executives.
Hundreds of Post Office branch operators were prosecuted, hounded for money and in some cases pushed to suicide between 1996 and 2015 after errors in the Horizon software system produced financial shortfalls in their branches. The Post Office continued to fight branch operators seeking justice until 2019.
“I loved the Post Office,” Vennells told the inquiry through tears, only to be accused by Sam Stein KC, representing victims, of talking “absolute rubbish”.

She added: “I regret hugely the group litigation, and I’ve seen all of the paperwork behind it, and in view of the judgments that were taken and where we are today, it is unacceptable reading.”
Vennells broke down under the questioning of barristers for the victims who accused her of hiding a deceptive nature by using “cloying managerial speak” and of living under a “cloud of denial” and providing “craven self-serving” evidence.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd11e45n3p5o

The room was packed with people, including many former sub-postmasters.
Their mood became more defiant as the day progressed, until at the end many booed Ms Vennells.
The question of remote access has been one of the themes of the inquiry.
The Post Office said in hundreds of wrongful prosecutions of sub-postmasters that they must have been to blame for money missing from accounts, which were calculated using the Horizon IT system.
Prosecutions between 1999 and 2015 meant some people went to prison, while many others were left financially ruined and lost their jobs, businesses and homes. Some died while waiting for justice.
On Friday, a landmark bill quashing the convictions of hundreds of former sub-postmasters received Royal Assent.