Post Office investigator denies acting like ‘mafia gangster’ with post office operators in evidence to inquiry
Here is the full text of the witness statement that Stephen Bradshaw has given to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry.
And this is what PA Media has filed based on what it says.
A Post Office investigator has denied claims he and others “behaved like Mafia gangsters” who were looking to collect “bounty with the threats and lies” from subpostmasters.
Stephen Bradshaw, who has been employed at the Post Office since 1978, submitted a witness statement to the Horizon IT inquiry in which he said: “I refute the allegation that I am a liar.”
He told the inquiry he was not “technically minded” and was not equipped to know whether there were bugs or errors in the Horizon system.
The witness began giving evidence this morning after being involved in the criminal investigation of nine sub-post office operators, including Lisa Brennan, a former counter clerk at a post office in Huyton, near Liverpool, who was falsely accused of stealing £3,000 in 2003.
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.
Another sub-post office operator, Jacqueline McDonald, claimed she was “bullied” by Bradshaw during an investigation into her alleged £50,000 shortfall.
Responding to McDonald’s claims in his statement, the witness 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.”
Throughout his witness statement, Bradshaw said his investigations had been conducted in a “professional” manner.
Key events
Labour has posted a summary of its child health action plan on its website. Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting have been formally launching it in Liverpool this morning.
Back at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry Stephen Bradshaw is being asked about what he did to establish that the computer system was working properly.
Julian Blake, counsel for the inquiry, shows an extract from a report by Bradshaw into a particular inquiry where Bradshaw said he was not aware of any problems with Horizon’s “product integrity”.
And Blake brings up this extract from Bradshaw’s witness statement, where he implies it was not for him to question the integrity of the Horizon system.
Blake questions why Bradshaw was not more sceptical of Horizon, given that by this point doubts about the system were being raised.
Bradshaw says in the investigation referred to, Horizon was not the issue.
In the Commons this morning Penny Mordaunt, leader of the house, told MPs that the second reading of the government’s oil and gas bill would take place on Monday 22 January. It was meant to happen three days ago, but got postponed because other business overran.
In the inquiry hearing Stephen Bradshaw, the Post Office investigator, defended saying that he wanted a particular case to go to trial to defend the integrity of the Horizon IT system.
Julian Blake, counsel for the inquiry, quoted from Bradshaw’s self-appraisal in the case of Jacqueline McDonald. (See 11.12am and 11.49am.) Bradshaw said:
The offender pleaded guilty to false accounting but would not accept theft. I challenged the recommendations of the barrister and persuaded him that a trial would be necessary, as the reason given by the defendant, Horizon integrity, would have a wider impact on the business if a trial did not go ahead.
Blake then asked:
It seems, certainly from your own feedback, from your own appraisal, that you saw it as in some way career-boosting to press on with Ms McDonald’s case because of problems with the Horizon system having a wider impact on the business, do you not accept that?
Bradshaw replied:
The issue would been discussed with the prosecution barrister, as you’re well aware, when you’re filling in one-to-ones, there’s always a flamboyant way of putting the words across.
Bradshaw also denied suggestions that his bonuses were related to getting convictions in cases like this.
Post Office investigator made accused post officer operator think she was only person with missing money, inquiry told
At the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry extracts were shown from a statement made by Jacqueline McDonald, who claimed she was “bullied” by Stephen Bradshaw during an investigation into her alleged £50,000 shortfall. In the statement, she said:
Shortly after I had been audited and my post office was taken away from me, I read an article in a magazine which highlighted other people who have suffered or [were] about to suffer the same hell I was going through. I then got in touch with the writer of the article who then put me in touch with the JFSA (Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance).
This was a very big surprise to me as I was led to believe by the investigator for the POL Stephen Bradshaw that I was the only one in this position and this has never happened before.
Stephen Bradshaw is a liar and he knew the whole time as I am friends with another person he has prosecuted that was a member of the JFSA. It is just unbelievable how I was made to feel like I was the only one and it made me isolated and paranoid.
Asked about this Bradshaw said: “I’ve never said that to her. That’s incorrect, that statement.”
This is from Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of the King’s Fund, the health thintkank, on today’s NHS England performance figures.
These figures show that the NHS is still not meeting the majority of its most important performance targets this winter.
On some measures the situation is better than this time last year, in part thanks to efforts to increase capacity as well as relatively low hospital admissions from Covid-19 and flu, but patients are still not receiving an acceptable level of service …
With the waiting list for routine care at 7.6 million, it is increasingly unlikely that the prime minister’s pledge to improve waiting-list performance by this March will be met.
NHS England has a target of getting rid of hospital waits of more than 65 weeks by March 2024, and waits of more than a year by March 2025. It was supposed to have eliminated 18-month waits by April 2023.
This is from John Hyde from the Law Society Gazette who (unlike many of us) started following Post Office Horizon IT inquiry hearings long before the ITV drama catapulted the scandal to the top of the Westminster news agenda.
Seen a lot of tweets from people saying Post Office investigator Stephen Bradshaw is coming across as incompetent and/or blindly defending the PO.
For those of us who have covered the inquiry before, let me tell you this is nothing new
Seen a lot of tweets from people saying Post Office investigator Stephen Bradshaw is coming across as incompetent and/or blindly defending the PO.
For those of us who have covered the inquiry before, let me tell you this is nothing new. #PostOfficeScandal
— John Hyde (@JohnHyde1982) January 11, 2024
At the inquiry hearing Julian Blake is now asking Stephen Bradshaw about his use of aggressive language in the Jacqueline McDonald investigation. (See 11.12am.) This included his suggesting she was telling “a pack of lies”.
Bradshaw repeats the point he made earlier about how these were Pace (Police and Criminal Evidence Act) interviews. (See 10.56am.) They were not intended to be nice, he says. He says he normally warned people in advance that he needed to ask tough questions, but that it was not personal.
UPDATE: PA Media has more on this exchange.
Jacqueline McDonald claimed she was “bullied” by Bradshaw during an investigation into her alleged £50,000 shortfall and also accused Post Office investigators of “behaving like Mafia gangsters”.
The inquiry heard extracts of an interview Bradshaw conducted with McDonald.
Bradshaw asked her to tell him what happened to the money, to which the subpostmistress said: “I don’t know where the money is, I’ve told you.”
He responded: “You have told me a pack of lies.”
McDonald said: “No I haven’t told you a pack of lies because I haven’t stolen a penny.”
Post Office investigator denies acting like ‘mafia gangster’ with post office operators in evidence to inquiry
Here is the full text of the witness statement that Stephen Bradshaw has given to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry.
And this is what PA Media has filed based on what it says.
A Post Office investigator has denied claims he and others “behaved like Mafia gangsters” who were looking to collect “bounty with the threats and lies” from subpostmasters.
Stephen Bradshaw, who has been employed at the Post Office since 1978, submitted a witness statement to the Horizon IT inquiry in which he said: “I refute the allegation that I am a liar.”
He told the inquiry he was not “technically minded” and was not equipped to know whether there were bugs or errors in the Horizon system.
The witness began giving evidence this morning after being involved in the criminal investigation of nine sub-post office operators, including Lisa Brennan, a former counter clerk at a post office in Huyton, near Liverpool, who was falsely accused of stealing £3,000 in 2003.
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.
Another sub-post office operator, Jacqueline McDonald, claimed she was “bullied” by Bradshaw during an investigation into her alleged £50,000 shortfall.
Responding to McDonald’s claims in his statement, the witness 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.”
Throughout his witness statement, Bradshaw said his investigations had been conducted in a “professional” manner.
Blake quotes an extract from Bradshaw’s witness statement where he says he never told a Post Office suspect that they were the only person experiencing the sort of money disappearance problem being investigated.
He quotes from the transcript of an interview attended by Bradshaw and another investigator where the second investigator told the woman being interviewed no one else was having those problems. He points out that Bradshaw did not query that.
Bradshaw says that comment meant no one else in that branch was having that problems. It was not a statement about no one else in the entire Post Office network having that problems.
Bradshaw says it was a Pace (Police and Criminal Evidence Act) interview. The questions were meant to be difficult, he says. He says he regards the interview as professional
More than 11,000 people still waiting more than 18 months for hospital treatment in England, figures show
Rishi Sunak said he wanted NHS England to eliminate all hospital waits lasting more than 18 months – apart from exceptionally complicated cases, or cases where patients are happy to wait. As PA Media reports, today’s figures show that 11,168 people were estimated waiting more than 18 months at the end of November 2023, up from 10,506 at the end of October.
Today’s figures also show that 355,412 people in England had been waiting more than a year for hospital treatment at the end of November 2023, down from 377,618 at the end of October, PA says. The government has a target of eliminating all waits of more than a year by March 2025.
At the inquiry Blake points out that some of what was in a previous witness statement from Bradshaw was drafted by the PR department at the Post Office.
Bradshaw says he did not know that. As far as he was aware, he says, the draft came from the lawywers.
