Paula Vennells takes the stand...

[Jamie123]

I go through phases of feeling very sorry for this woman - but I seem to be very much in the minority.

I'm sure she did know deep down that the Post Office position was a heap of garbage, but her brief was to protect the business and maximize profits. She could have called shenanigans, but that would have brought her up against some very powerful people. She would have been broken like all whistleblowers.

It was easier for her to put her money on the Post Office, hope for the best, and try not to think about it too much.

Question though: how many of us have our own "Post Office Scandal" hidden in the cupboard?

(Sorry - this should probably have gone under Current Events.)

P.S. I was just thinking: there's a parallel here with the movie Capricorn One. [SPOILER ALERT!!!!!] NASA had a mission that couldn't fail, because so much public money was invested. (As it was in Post Office Horizon.) When the technology did fail, they faked it. (Like claiming Horizon worked perfectly and postal workers had filched the missing money.) This eventually involved murdering the astronauts to keep up the deception after the (empty) spacecraft crashed. (Cf. bankrupting and imprisoning postmasters, making them pariahs of their communities and driving some of them to suicide.) One astronaut escaped to spill the beans. (Alan Bates.) The movie ended there, and we are left to imagine the fallout... but it was bound to have been similar to what's happening now!

P.P.S. Not a perfect analogy I know. Faking a Mars mission requires a little more deliberate maleficence than turning a blind eye to computer bugs. But malice is malice, whether active or passive. 

Edited May 22 by Jamie123

[Vort]

I have very little compassion and no tolerance at all for those who engage in such corruption. These are the type of people who destroy society. Or more colloquially: This is why we can't have nice things.