The Accidental Analyst asks how did the Post Office get away with it for so long?

And what does it mean for other organisations?

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. Yet the combined efforts of many print journalists failed to deliver justice for the subpostmasters wrongly prosecuted by the Post Office. They say a picture paints a thousand words. Yet all the pictures and news reports over many years still did not stop the Post Office in its tracks or expedite justice for the people whose lives were ruined and, in some cases, lost.

What it took, in the end, was a TV drama, albeit based on a lot of historical fact and evidence, to get the nation’s leaders to wake up and take notice of what had been going on under their noses for years. And in most cases, especially by some Government ministers, evidence that was happily dismissed and ignored because they simply couldn’t be arsed to do the job they were paid to do to protect us.

Every drama needs a villain and in this case, it was not the stereotypical one. It was the CEO of the Post Office, Paula Vennells, who also happens to be an ordained minister in the Church of England. You would think a CEO of an “arm’s length” business (that is, one which is ostensibly a publicly owned company but which behaves and acts in many ways as if it were in the private sector) would be accountable to her shareholders - in this case, His Majesty’s Government. You would think she would have the best interests of her customers (the subpostmasters in the main) front and centre of what she did. You would think that all they did would be open and transparent as it was, effectively, our money that paid her and ran the business.

If you thought that, and we all did, you would have been horribly and comprehensively wrong. Much has been written and discussed about this angle and I have no more information than any viewer or reader of news. But the one aspect of this that is not being examined as forensically, is her behaviour as a Minister of the Church of England and how it affected the way she made decisions impacting so many lives. That is the lens I wish to look through and, it is as a Minister, that I wish to shine the brightest light on her values (or lack of them).

Who does she really report to?

As you will know, I usually declare my position on key elements of my analysis to allow you, the reader, to determine any bias on my part and dial it out of your thinking. I am not a Christian (although I was brought up as such by my parents and sent to Methodist Sunday School every week!) and I do not believe in a god. I do however accept that others have strong faith in these domains and I respect their view, whilst not agreeing with it. However, this is not about my faith or beliefs. It is about those of Paula Vennells and how they influenced her decisions as a CEO.

I am reasonably familiar with the main tenets of the Christian faith and I do share some of the values - but that’s because I think they are humanistic, not because I follow the doctrine of any church. I do try to treat my fellow humans as I would wish to treated by them. I do try to be honest and trustworthy in my personal and business dealings with others. And ultimately it is those simple values that I will use to examine what Paula Vennells did and how she did it. I am not able or qualified to pass judgment on her, but I can have a view on what that could be from others. In the Christian world, judgment comes from her God and that may well be where she feels her loyalties lie. But if so, how did she continue to betray all those other Christian values and still feel she had done nothing wrong? All her pronouncements since the airing of the ITV drama, have avoided any personal culpability for what went on during her watch as CEO. Those statements seem to me to be the work of lawyers and PR advisers, not the Almighty. So what is going on?

What did she know and when did she know it?

There is no viable excuse for not knowing what is going on inside the organisation of which you Chief Executive. I don’t expect them to be aware of every detail at the molecular level but the issues around a computer system the Post Office paid millions for surely would have been made known to the CEO?

Even if you say, OK, maybe her IT Director and CIO didn’t feel this was a matter to bring to the attention of the CEO then surely the decision to prosecute individual sub-postmasters for theft, fraud and false accounting would have been made known to her? And even if that wasn’t, surely the CFO would have told her about issues with money going missing from Post Office accounts?

Surely, you ask, there were management meetings and board meetings where such matters would have been aired and of which she would have been aware? Even if she wasn’t there, surely she would have seen the minutes? And if all of that failed, surely she would have heard anecdotally from her PA about the “word on the street”? And surely she would have had to sanction the spending of significant sums of money on the legal fees to push through the prosecutions?

In other words, there is no realistic probability that she did not know what was going on. In my view, zero. Therefore, if she knew, and I am certain she did, then she must have supported the actions that flowed from those decisions. It is equally inconceivable that such actions would be taken if she had blocked them.

What this inexorably means is that she is 100% culpable and was aware fully of what was going on. If she didn’t understand it and failed to seek clarification, then she is stupid and negligent. Not ideal qualities in a CEO. The Post Office has done its level best to hide evidence but if the right information was provided to even a trainee detective, the trail of complicity would have been obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse. And it all leads directly to Paula Vennells. Yet, until now she has denied it and continued with the corporate line (no doubt dictated to her by Post Office lawyers) that the Horizon system is working as intended, there are no issues which would explain the losses at branch level so therefore it MUST be the individual sub-postmasters who are on the fiddle.

I used to live in a small Oxfordshire village with a tiny post office run by the lovely Gill. Everybody knew Gill and loved her. Everybody completely trusted her and knew she was 100% straight. The idea that hundreds of people like Gill around the country would have siphoned off money for their own gain is beyond ridicule. Yet the Post Office ruthlessly went after people like her because it would not admit its own computer system had a fault. That action was sanctioned by Paula Vennells who was paid millions in salary and bonuses during her tenure as CEO.

What would Jesus have done?

I’m out on theologically thin ice now. But I use this question when I look at the behaviour of so-called Christians and churches to ascertain just how well they follow the teachings of the son of God, the one they profess to love and obey. As a slight digression, most Sundays, on my way to buy my newspaper, I drive past one of the many local churches at the time of the service. It’s on a narrow B-road. There is a car park next to it. But it gets full so other attendees park on the road outside - except they have half of their car up on the very narrow footpath, thus forcing pedestrians into the road whilst they sing their hymns inside. It is now an offence in Scotland to park on the footpath, yet they keep doing it. So, I asked myself, “where would Jesus park?” I doubt he would have a car but he would tell people to obey the law and consider the needs of others. These people do neither yet they would profess to be Christians.

Let’s turn our attention now to Paula Vennells, a minister of the Church of England, who, you would imagine, is a devout Christian, a believer in God and a follower of Jesus. As we have established above, she was complicit in the actions to prosecute innocent people without evidence, other than reports from a faulty computer system which resulted in many of them going to jail, losing their businesses, their pensions, their reputations, their sanity and in some cases their lives.

She would be familiar with the Ten Commandments, but the two most relevant ones are 8 (Thou shalt not steal) and 9 (Thou shalt not bear false witness). How does Paula Vennells reconcile those commandments, and her adherence to them as a Church Minister, with the actions she sanctioned by Post Office officials against sub-postmasters?

Surely, as a Minister, the first thing she should do is confess to her sins and then seek forgiveness so she can repent. But, of course, none of this has happened. Instead, her role as CEO has taken precedence over her role as CEO which would appear to be a breach of the first Commandment which basically says you put God first above all others if you wish to be blessed by Him.

Of course, I don’t know what goes on in the privacy of her communions but surely, if she has any conscience, then she would abandon all the legal malarkey and let her Christian faith guide her, and then accept the consequences and the judgement of God. Just as Jesus did.

As we now know she has not done any of that although she says she has stepped back from her role in the Church. It seems to me she now has two cases to answer. One, to the people she rode over with disdain and deceit, and two, to her ethical and spiritual superiors in the Church, and through them, ultimately to her God. As I write this, she has decided to say nothing more whilst the various investigations are ongoing (a legal fig leaf) and neither she nor the Church has made any comment on how her actions align with their shared beliefs, and indeed, her obligations as a Minister.

Are we to judge her, or is that the preserve of the courts and the Church? I think we can and should reach our own judgements, but of course we are not in a position to implement any sanctions. It is clearly a massive injustice that has been visited on the subpostmasters so to me, it seems right and proper that she should be exposed fully to, and then face, substantial sanctions, including loss of her taxpayer funded pension, the repayment of any bonuses paid for “performance” and a significant period of incarceration. Those are the ones available through the legal system. I would also consider it right and proper that she be stripped of her role as an ordained Minister and expelled from the Church. I’m not 100% sure about this, but I think there is a precedent based on money-lenders and Jesus.

Where to now, St. Peter?**

None of this will make the slightest difference to restoring the lost lives of subpostmasters who have been told they will be exonerated and compensated. This year. Well, we’ll see if that actually happens. But the amount of money will not come close to compensating those people for the 20 years and more they endured at the hands of a vicious, ruthless and uncaring organisation that pursued them with little or no evidence, denying them even the most basic rights normally expected for those suspected of a crime. And THAT is the biggest crime of all.

Let us push and shout and complain to those in power until this is put right. Let us keep up the pressure until such behaviour in all kinds of companies, but especially those funded by taxpayers, is eviscerated from them. Let us not accept this kind of “service” from the likes of TV Licensing, Customs & Excise, Local Councils, train companies, energy companies, banks and so on. Stand up. Be counted. If we don’t, then the suffering of the subpostmasters will have been in vain. And history WILL repeat itself.

** Title of an early Elton John song.