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From: Paula Vennells[j__
Sent: Thur 18/12/2014 7:24:30 AM (UTC)
To: Alice Perkins CBE
Subject: Fwd: One Show
Hi Alice, if you get chance probably worth a view of the OneShow. (From both your directorships actually - the
BBC produced a very viewable Sminute bulletin, pity it is so wrong.)
The note below refers. Worth at least reading Angela's reply to my questions.
I do hope the carols went well! I stayed late cleared a lot of work and then had a wonderful family supper. Really
great :)
Paula
Paula Vennells
Chief Executive
Post Office Ltd
Sent from my iPad
Begin forwarded message:
From: Paula Vennell:
Date: 18 December 2014 0
To: Angela Van-Den-Bogerd
Mark R Davies
Patrick Bourke
Angela, thanks so much. And my apologies first of all for missing you off the email yesterday.
Without the work that you and your team have done, none of what we are doing would be
possible!
Mark, I don't know if you think we can do anything, it's probably best not to but worth the
thought.
Chris, if you didn't see the OneShow, please can you watch the clip - again I expect we are best to
do nothing at this stage but Steve Phillips is completely out of order, inaccurate at best, lying at
worst. And has wilfully collaborated to being us into disrepute. Any views?
Paula
Paula Vennells
Chief Executive
Post Office Ltd
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“GRO
Steve Phillips at Nelson is in the Scheme. We have extensively investigated his claims -
first as BAU and then as a Scheme application. He claims that interference on his
telephone line was causing him losses in branch as well as intermittent power cuts.
We have invested a large amount of time sharing our investigation findings with him.
I have personally visited him to share our findings and have demonstrated to him that
the cause of his losses is highly likely to be errors at the counter (we have evidence of
a large number of errors being attributed to Steve himself) although we can not rule
out theft as his security procedures were lacking. We advised him early on through
BAU when his losses had not reached £18k to introduce individual stock units. He
refused and the losses continued. When I became involved I insisted he introduce
individual stock units which my team set up for him. Since this point the losses have
stopped (other than the usual tolerance level ie £20ish per week)
The reason we haven't been in touch with Steve about the loss is that I agreed with
him we would block his debt until his application had concluded in the Scheme. Steve
is aware of this. He is also aware that our investigation has found no system or
equipment fault and therefore he realises he is responsible for the loss. Second Sight
has yet to produce their view on this case - this is I believe a few weeks off.
Angela
From: Belinda Crowe
Sent: 17 December 2014 22:42
To: Angela Van-Den-Bogerd
Subject: Fw: One Show
See below from Paula.
From: Paula Vennells
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2014 09:45 PM
To: Mark R Davies; Belinda Crowe; Gavin Lambert; Patrick Bourke
Ce: Alice Perkins
Subject: One Show
Hi all, I managed to catch the one show on iPlayer.
Not denying the fact it is unhelpful and inaccurate, (especially the focus on Horizon -
but see below re thoughts on that), Mark has achieved a balance of reporting beyond
anything I could have hoped for. The statements stamped across the screen with the
PO sign as a back drop were really powerful. They emphasised everything we have
done, and came across as ... fact! Very good.
The rest was hype and human interest. Not easy for me to be objective but I was
more bored than outraged. The MP quoted (who?) was full of bluster, and
inaccurate. Jo Hamilton lacked passion and admitted false accounting on TV. JA was
nowhere to be seen. And the bulletin was too long.
What I thought was helpful was that it presented Horizon as the problem, which is
exactly what SS say they haven't found. And so easier for us to refute. There was
nothing about intimidation, poor coaching and the message about not knowing how
to use the system, in my eyes made the SPMRs look inadequate.
Lastly, (belt and braces I know - forgive me), can we find out how the SPMR in
Nelson (Wales) thinks we're about to go after him for £18k and why he thinks we
haven't been in touch. That sounds like a live issue, not one in the scheme? (I'm sure
we have been in touch!)
My sincere thanks to all of you. I had an email tonight from Richard C saying how
much you had helped, that we could have done nothing more and he was sorry the
debate had not gone better.
Paula
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