Post Office Enquiry (Van Den Bogerd giving evidence today)

I bet her CV says she was in charge of this, responsible for that and a hands on senior manager whilst her testimony says she did sod all, didn’t even read her emails
 
Lost Seasider said:
Or more accurately, how serious she thought the e-mail was.
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Given people were being prosecuted and sent to prison I would like to think that someone in a senior position would take the emails seriously. It’s hard to imagine she could have thought it was frivolous chit chat. Doesn’t say much for her either way.
 
1966_and_all_that said:
She's a hard-faced, opinionated woman who expects to get her own way. She tried to trade toe-to-toe with Beer until it was obvious he was besting her. I bet she was a real nasty sod to the SPMs.
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When the sub-postmasters won their High Court case in 2019, Mr Justice Fraser criticised half of the Post Office’s 14 witnesses for being less than honest (under oath).
Van den Bogerd had “sought to obfuscate matters, and mislead me” and, although “a very clever person”, had an unfortunate “disregard for factual accuracy”.

On today's showing - and after she's been completely shredded tomorrow - it's odds on that the inquiry will be reaching a similar conclusion.
 
" I was not aware ", I cannot remember " and " I was not informed" aren't going to wash against the post masters legal team.
Tomorrow will be riveting I suspect, and I REALLY hope they tear her a new one.
My opening question would be "Tell me exactly what your role at P O and the associated responsibilities were"?
Then armed to the teeth with irrefutable evidence I'd let her hang herself.
 
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traffordtang said:
Given people were being prosecuted and sent to prison I would like to think that someone in a senior position would take the emails seriously. It’s hard to imagine she could have thought it was frivolous chit chat. Doesn’t say much for her either way.
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I doubt she connected the e-mails to the prosecutions, which she wasn't AFAIK directly involved with and was likely only marginally aware of, in this case the e-mails might appear to be a case of "this can technically happen", in which case the response should've been "why is this important?"

If it had been a case of "Fujitsu can and does alter records, and this fatally undermines all of our prosecutions", then that would be decisive, but a vague "Fujitsu can maybe alter records" is easier to miss.
 
TimperleyTangerine said:
Yes, but she recalls those that suit. She’s also got this amazing highly paid role, but without any responsibility. She’s pointed the finger of responsibility at those above & below.

This is the ‘good cop’ examination, it’ll be total carnage once Counsel for the postmasters get their chance.
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Beer is likely leading her to the abyss
 
Wizaard said:
Yet with covid, so many servers malfunctioned and deleted everything...

Course they did.
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No, it was not the government servers that lost emails or had deleted data in the Covid days.

It was the fact that ministers were using WhatsApp for short, rapid communications which is end-to-end encrypted to a high complexity. So there are no data storage servers as such, just phone storage at either end.

And, as we saw, ministers routinely deleted messages after reading/sending making them unrecoverable; that was almost a conspiratorial routine amongst them all to prevent leaks. Or they lost or reformatted phones or “forgot” their passwords (Bozo!) by the time it came to giving evidence at the public inquiry. It was totally chaotic with respect to record keeping.

Corporate email systems are very different; there are almost always backups if IT is run properly, with the administrator having full access. There should be enough surviving email evidence in archives because these PO execs are stupid as well as corrupt. The PO public inquiry lawyers are dragging up relevant messages going back 15 years or more as proof of malpractice.

But… as Horizon showed, “properly” was a very loose term in the PO.
 
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Lost Seasider said:
I doubt she connected the e-mails to the prosecutions, which she wasn't AFAIK directly involved with and was likely only marginally aware of, in this case the e-mails might appear to be a case of "this can technically happen", in which case the response should've been "why is this important?"

If it had been a case of "Fujitsu can and does alter records, and this fatally undermines all of our prosecutions", then that would be decisive, but a vague "Fujitsu can maybe alter records" is easier to miss.
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December 5 2010 email forwarded to her from Lynn Hobbs, the organisation's general manager of network support, said she had "found out that Fujitsu can actually put an entry into a branch account remotely".

But in 2014 Post Office communications professional Melanie Corfield sent an email to several Post Office executives, including Ms van den Bogerd.

It read: "Our current line, if we're asked about remote access being used to change branch data or transactions, is simply 'this is not and has never been possible'."

Ms van den Bogerd said she "must have missed" the email, adding: "If it had registered with me, I would have challenged it", because she had received earlier emails stating the opposite.

None of the above reads as remotely vague to me. Even Bogerd herself seems to be admitting that it is quite clear.
 
Tangerine phil said:
My question about the whole scandal is did nobody think well a few postmasters stealing is possible but when the numbers grew and grew it’s impossible so many are on the fiddle is something wrong with the system 🤷🏽‍♂️
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Plus also how come we've got all this extra money ? ( from when the post masters paid the discrepancies from their own pocket)
 
traffordtang said:
December 5 2010 email forwarded to her from Lynn Hobbs, the organisation's general manager of network support, said she had "found out that Fujitsu can actually put an entry into a branch account remotely".
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That actually sounds fairly vague to me, a kind of "in theory this can happen" type of message rather than a "Fujitsu are f***ing around with the accounting entries, and we have no idea what's going on" type of message, that would have been remembered.


traffordtang said:
But in 2014 Post Office communications professional Melanie Corfield sent an email to several Post Office executives, including Ms van den Bogerd.
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The phrase "communications professional" also seems pretty vague, how high up in the organization was she? How much attention do senior execs pay to missives from "communications professionals" anyway?
 
Lost Seasider said:
That actually sounds fairly vague to me, a kind of "in theory this can happen" type of message rather than a "Fujitsu are f***ing around with the accounting entries, and we have no idea what's going on" type of message, that would have been remembered.



The phrase "communications professional" also seems pretty vague, how high up in the organization was she? How much attention do senior execs pay to missives from "communications professionals" anyway?
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I suppose people read it how they want to. Like I said even she agreed it was quite clear.
 
Tangerine phil said:
My question about the whole scandal is did nobody think well a few postmasters stealing is possible but when the numbers grew and grew it’s impossible so many are on the fiddle is something wrong with the system 🤷🏽‍♂️
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Spot on Phil, fraud was at a very low level then all of a sudden its the opposite, did no one make the connection between the entry of a new system and this rise in fraud? It seem that no one within PO management had the balls to ask, "what could possibly have gone wrong"
 
braymarina said:
Spot on Phil, fraud was at a very low level then all of a sudden its the opposite, did no one make the connection between the entry of a new system and this rise in fraud? It seem that no one within PO management had the balls to ask, "what could possibly have gone wrong"
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I read that their thinking was the new system was flushing out fraud which they couldn't identify before the system implementation.
 
Lost Seasider said:
That actually sounds fairly vague to me, a kind of "in theory this can happen" type of message rather than a "Fujitsu are f***ing around with the accounting entries, and we have no idea what's going on" type of message, that would have been remembered
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It wasn't just one email though. There were several and we've heard evidence that the issue was being discussed at senior levels including legal advisers over some time.

The fact she was so heavily involved yet didn't know is very hard to believe.

Of course, if she admits she knew, she could face a perjury charge and jail.
 
If you look at what they all say, no one knew anything. Therefore they were not doing their jobs properly, thus causing
hundreds of postmasters to lose their businesses, often their savings and reputation and in some cases their freedom through being jailed.

It would, in my opinion ,having the lot of them fined heavily, and jailed to see how they enjoy it a decent outcome. Bastards.
 
braymarina said:
Spot on Phil, fraud was at a very low level then all of a sudden its the opposite, did no one make the connection between the entry of a new system and this rise in fraud? It seem that no one within PO management had the balls to ask, "what could possibly have gone wrong"
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I’m sure the connection was made from everything I’ve heard but they just wouldn’t accept it. It was clearly better for them to ruin hundreds of peoples lives than admit that the system was seriously flawed. Just how could one organisation have so many people at the top tier with so little moral compass. Were they hand picked for that “quality” when they were appointed.
 
Amazing so much malicious vindictive and scandalous actions were being done without any of them knowing how or who was doing it.. except they are sure it wasn’t them….
 
There's more errms from this evil woman than in a Neil Critchley interview.

Love the way Beer is leading her down the path , you just know he'll finish with a purler of a question to finally trap her.
 
When watching the interviews it's so obvious that they all think so clearly before giving and an answer.
Then they try to use language which is non self accusing and very negative.
Hopefully their turn will come and their days are numbered.
 
The BBC has taken down their live feed and the contemporaneous summary notes for today. Unusual.
Their lawyers might think there is a lot of incriminating stuff that will have to wait for the criminal prosecutions.
 
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The barrister for the interested parties hammered her today
Repeatedly called her a liar stuck with a false narrative to avoid perjury charges
Are you a liar or a gross incompetent ?
Do you know the difference between right and wrong ?
Great watch
 
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