Post Office fraud investigators deny "Mafia gangster" tactics

Stephen Bradshaw, who has been employed at the Post Office since 1978, refuted the claim by subpostmistress Jacqueline McDonald yesterday as he appeared as a witness at the Horizon IT inquiry.

The inquiry kicked back into action the day after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that the hundreds of wrongly-convicted branch managers could have their names cleared by the end of the year.

Mr Bradshaw began giving evidence after being involved in the criminal investigation of nine subpostmasters, including Ms McDonald who claimed she was “bullied” by Mr Bradshaw during an investigation into her alleged £50,000 shortfall.

She pleaded guilty to theft after an audit found there had been a shortfall of over £94,000.

In her interview with Mr Bradshaw, which was read to the inquiry, Ms McDonald was accused by the investigator of telling him a “pack of lies”.

The exchange between Ms McDonald and Mr Bradshaw, read by counsel to the inquiry Julian Blake, included the investigator saying: “Would you like to tell me what happened to the money?”

Ms McDonald replied: “I don’t know where the money is I’ve told you.”

Mr Bradshaw continued: “You have told me a pack of lies.”

Ms McDonald said: “No I haven’t told you a pack of lies because I haven’t stolen a penny.”

Mr Blake said the witness’s words sounded “somewhat like language you might see in a 1970s television detective show”.

Responding to Ms McDonald’s allegations of his aggressive behaviour in his witness statement, Mr Bradshaw said: “I refute the allegation that I am a liar.

“I also refute the claim that Jacqueline McDonald was bullied, from the moment we arrived, the auditor was already on site, conversations were initially (held) with Mr McDonald, the reason for our attendance was explained, Mr and Mrs McDonald were kept updated as the day progressed.”

The investigator added: “Ms Jacqueline McDonald is also incorrect in stating Post Office investigators behaved like Mafia gangsters looking to collect their bounty with the threats and lies.”

The security employee was appearing before the inquiry as it resumed for the first time since last week’s explosive ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office was aired.

The scandal that led to the conviction of over 900 subpostmasters has been branded by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as “one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history” and on Wednesday he announced all those affected will have their names cleared and compensation paid.

Hundreds of innocent victims were accused of swindling money on the basis of evidence from the supposed state-of-the-art £2.3bn Horizon accounting system created by tech giants Fujitsu, that began being rolled out to every Post Office branch across the UK in 1999.

In 2019 the High Court finally ruled that Horizon was riddled with “bugs, errors and defects” and there was a “material risk” that shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts were caused by the system.

The Post Office, which is solely owned by the Government, then used its unique power to convict their innocent employees, with many of those who avoided jail having their lives ruined as they were forced to sell homes and beg relatives for loans to pay the Post Office the money they had supposedly stolen.

Mr Bradshaw has also been accused by fellow Merseyside subpostmistress Rita Threlfall of asking her for the colour of her eyes and what jewellery she wore before saying: “Good, so we’ve got a description of you for when they come”, during her interview under caution in August 2010.

He was also involved in the investigation into Lisa Brennan, a former counter clerk at a post office in Huyton, near Liverpool, who was falsely accused of stealing £3,000 in 2003.

Mr Bradshaw has also been accused of forcing a disabled postmistress to use a parcel lift ahead of an interview, the inquiry heard.

He is said to have made a former subpostmistress who was wheelchair-bound take a “tiny parcel lift” to the interview room in August 2010, as she could not use the stairs.

He claims to have had a picture of the lift and could prove that this was not the case, but the inquiry was told the Post Office has not challenged the account of the former subpostmistress.

The inquiry also heard Mr Bradshaw called former postmistress Shazia Sadiq a “b—-“ during a phone call in 2016.

Ms Sadiq said in her witness statement that she had received “threatening calls” from Stephen Bradshaw and his colleague Brian Trotter.

She wrote: “I have received particularly intimidating telephone calls from Stephen Bradshaw who began calling me before I knew he worked for the Post Office. He did not identify himself in the calls, he just made demands of me.”

She claims Mr Bradshaw called her more than 60 times, but he denied that he had “hounded her”.

Angela Sefton and Anne Nield, two sub-postmistresses who worked at the Fazakerley Post Office branch in Liverpool, used credit cards and money earmarked for holidays to balance accounts and delayed other payments, as a deficit spiralled to £34,000.

Both women received suspended prison sentences in 2013 after they pleaded guilty to false accounting. Their convictions were later quashed by the Court of Appeal.

The inquiry was told the women were “too terrified” to report the losses and were in tears when two auditors and two investigators, including Mr Bradshaw, visited the branch.

Ms Nield had raised suspicions about Horizon but Mr Bradshaw said his inquiry was focused on the non-payment of cash deposits and that her IT concerns were secondary.

Mr Bradshaw told the inquiry he was not “technically minded” and was not equipped to know whether there were bugs or errors in the Horizon system.

Throughout his witness statement, Mr Bradshaw said his investigations had been conducted in a “professional” manner.

At the beginning of his evidence, Mr Blake first asked the witness: “Do you think that you have given enough thought over the past 20 years as to whether you may have been involved in what has been described as one of the largest miscarriages of justice in British history?”

Mr Bradshaw replied: “It would appear that through not being given any knowledge from top downwards that if any bugs, errors or defects were there it’s not been cascaded down from Fujitsu, the Post Office board down to our level as the investigations manager.”

“I had no reason to suspect at the time that there was anything wrong with the Horizon system because we’d not been told.”

“The investigations were done correctly.”

“The investigations were done at the time, no problems were indicated by anybody that there was issues with the Horizon system.”

Mr Bradshaw told the inquiry that a statement signed by him declaring the Post Office’s “absolute confidence” in the Horizon IT system was written by lawyers from the law firm Cartwright King.

The statement signed by the investigator in November 2012 said: “The Post Office continues to have absolute confidence in the robustness and integrity of its Horizon system.”

Asked if it was appropriate for him to declare “confidence” in the IT system in the 2012 statement, he said: “I was given that statement by Cartwright King and told to put that statement through.”

“In hindsight…there probably should have been another line stating, ‘These are not my words’.”

While ministers acknowledge the plan could result in some subpostmasters who did commit crimes being wrongly cleared, they insist the process of blanket exoneration is the most effective way of dealing with the vast majority who were victims of a miscarriage of justice.

As a safeguard, those involved will sign a statement saying they did not commit the crime of which they were accused, with anyone subsequently found to have signed that untruthfully putting themselves at risk of prosecution for fraud.

Downing Street confirmed the “ambition” is for the plan to be implemented by the end of the year.

Mr Sunak said: “This is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history.”

“People who worked hard to serve their communities had their lives and their reputations destroyed through absolutely no fault of their own. The victims must get justice and compensation.”

Those whose convictions are quashed are eligible for a £600,000 compensation payment, or potentially more if they go through a process of having their claim individually assessed.

Mr Sunak also announced a £75,000 offer for subpostmasters involved in a group legal action against the Post Office – with ministers setting aside up to £1 billion for compensation.

The statutory inquiry, which began in 2021 and is chaired by retired judge Sir Wyn Williams, has previously looked at the human impact of the scandal, the Horizon system roll-out and the operating of the system, and is now probing the action taken against subpostmasters.

The probe was established to ensure there is a “public summary of the failings which occurred with the Horizon IT system at the Post Office” and subsequently led to the wrongful convictions of subpostmasters.