THERE is loose talk of penance. Of ‘having to pay’. But as a person who has done well in life, I believe we cannot punish anyone involved in the Post Office scandal.
Who could look at this tragedy, with hundreds of innocents serving sentences, lives ruined, and say ‘we need to imprison more people’? Can we not learn from our mistakes?
Once you ascend to a certain level, responsibility becomes a very fragile thing. It’s not simple, like a man with a shop or a subpostmaster with their office. It’s much more diffuse.
Have I seen an email or haven’t I? Did I read that report or just skim it? Was my attention elsewhere during a meeting? For the little people these questions mean nothing. It cannot be that for those of us with boardrooms and rewarding financial packages it becomes a crime.
Really, all Paula Vennells did wrong was trust. To trust her subordinates, to trust Fujitsu, to trust all those who wanted the best for her and her organisation. Is that so bad, trusting them over employees who had, let’s not forget, criminal records?
And while there is guilt here, it is smeared so very lightly over the hundreds involved that it is only microns thick, more a misdemeanour. Not like the big fat dollops of guilt that landed on those subpostmasters’ counters, making them easy arrests.
For if Vennells is guilty, are not those involved in Grenfell? In Covid grant fraud? Is not every CEO, MP, and former Met Police commissioner Cressida Dick then responsible for the injustices and deaths on their watch? What kind of world would that be?
No, a judge should conclude this is all very wrong, compensation should be paid from the public purse, everyone involved must apologise and keep their bonuses, and let the matter end there.
After all it could have been any of us. By which I mean myself and my mates.
