Integrity as an unnecessary business expense

Post Office scandal: how did Paula Vennells, an ordained priest, fall so far and so fast from grace? | Post Office Horizon scandal | The Guardian

In meeting notes about Crichton’s departure, Vennells wrote that the lawyer had “put her integrity as a lawyer above the interests of the business”. (emphasis added)

Two years earlier, the inquiry has heard, in the evidence of the Post Office’s then senior in-house lawyer, Chris Aujard, it was Vennells who insisted that prosecutions of subpostmasters continue, despite contrary evidence raised in Second Sight’s interim report. Susan Crichton, Aujard’s predecessor as general counsel, had resigned after being excluded from a meeting about that report after, she said refusing to “manage or manipulate the [information] in the way that Alice Perkins [former chair of the board] was expecting me to.” In meeting notes about Crichton’s departure, Vennells wrote that the lawyer had “put her integrity as a lawyer above the interests of the business”.

A particular dominant negative mutation in capitalism will destroy much we once held dear. Capitalism, the nation state, or democracy: you only get to choose one option. There remains the Hell option for the chosen few.