Summary of Tape
Recorded Interview
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Person Janet Louise SKINNER (JS) Exhibit No:
Interviewed Number of pages: 13
Place of Bransholme Police Station
Interview Hull Signature of interviewing
officer producing exhibit
Date of 15* June 2006
Interview
Time 13:26 hours Time 14.10 hours
commenced concluded
Duration of 44 minutes Tape 043366
interview reference no
Interviewing Diane MATTHEWS (DM)
Officer(s) Stephen BRADSHAW (SB)
Other persons
present
Tape Person Text
counter speaking
times
0.00 Introductions
Cautioned
cso15
Caution explained
CS001 signed at 13.
CS003 signed at 13.
Solicitor declined
043707 and 043409
28 hours
31 hours
tapes seals for tapes that were faulty.
JS confirms these were sealed in her presence
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Summary of Tape Recorded Interview (continued)
5.03 DM I just want to go over your experience in the Post Office
and specifically at North Bransholme. How long have you
been at that office
JS Started the 1st November 2003 I think it was
DM What capacity
5.21 JS I was the Manager, I was taken on as the manager
DM Was the office owned by someone else at the time
JS Yes Caroline was the manager at that time
DM Had you had any previous experience of working in a
Post Office prior to this
5.55 JS JS explains her working history at United News owned
Post Offices which started in February 1995 at as a
counter clerk includes spells at Orchard Park ,Kingston
Road 1998 as assistant manager, Dalsetter Rise as
Manager, Spring Cottage as Manager. And Bodmin Road
as manager. JS states she has been the Manager at
North Bransholme since she started there.
JS explains in May 2004 she became temporary
Subpostmisstress at North Bransholme and Bodmin
Road.
10.15 DM So you have quite a lot of experience of running a Post
office and using the Horizon system
JS I was the first one in Hull to get training on it
DM Were you, so you’re the expert round here are you
JS Yes
DM So would it be fair to say that you are happy with how to
run an office and the procedures
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Summary of Tape Recorded Interview (continued)
JS Yes
DM And obviously the Horizon system
JS Yes
DM In your opinion what is the reason for doing a balance at
an office
10.41 JS To make sure that the books correspond and to make
sure that everything is correct
DM So its also a fair assumption to give a record of everything
that is held in the office and the transactions undertaken
in that particular week.
11.00 JS Yes
DM What is your procedure in your contract for dealing with
losses and gains
JS I have to cover the losses and gains
DM Ok so lets just say that you have a £50 over what would
you do, what would your contract say you can do with the
£50
JS We usually do, if it was over we would put it in a bag and
it would stay in the safe. If we get an error notice back it
would be cleared with it.
DM So you would remove that money from the till
JS Yes
DM Again what if it was a similar amount short
JS Then if the money was there to put back we would use
the money that was over if is is a large amount I would
have to put it back myself with a cheque.
DM So you would make your losses good
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Summary of Tape Recorded Interview (continued)
JS Yes
DM And you can remove any gains as per your contract
JS Yes
11.53 DM DM Recaps on the events of previous 2 days, 30" and
31' May 2006 and the reason for the interview
JS confirms the statement by Diane Hoyle was an
accurate account of the events and that it is her signature
on the statement.
DM reads statement out.
Audit on May 31% covered
Notebook entry by SB read out regarding arrangements
made for JS to attend a voluntary interview. Legal rights
explained. JS confirms it is an accurate account of the
conversation.
15.28 DM So the audit took place and the result was an overall
shortage of £59,175.39. The breakdown of that is the
cash element £58,942.41 short. The stock was £292.27
short and your postage was a surplus of £59.29. Giving
an overall shortage of £59,175.39. Are you happy with
that
JS No im not happy at all.
DM Do you accept that that is probably, I don’t know if that
was the figure that you were expecting
JS No I wernt
DM You have indicated £40,000
JS Its just been going up and up and up for the past 5
months.
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16.41 DM Do you want to give us your account of why there is over
£59,000 short in your account.
JS If I had the answer I would give you it but I haven't. It
started of £7,500 and its just basically gone up and to be
honest I just thought that whoever was taking it would be
putting it back. I mean I can prove to you, im here
because I want to prove that I am innocent. If you want to
search my house you can, if you want to search my banks
you can. I have nothing to hide what so ever, I am not a
thief.
DM When you said you had a shortage of £7,500 when was
that
JS Back in January this year
DM Right just go back to this one instance first of all. You
have got a shortage of £7,500, did you complete the
balance that night
17.43 JS Yes
DM Does your office have individual stock units
JS It did we were running on individual stock units up until
June last year. That was because one of the women went
on sick and it was mainly because of that person that we
were on individual stock units because their stock unit
was always, well, the balancing was always really bad it
was sometimes over £100 and we had customers coming
back saying she had short changed them of £100 and in
one week we had 3 customers saying that she had short
changed them off £100.
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Summary of Tape Recorded Interview (continued)
18.02 IDM And who was this
JS Z
L I So that’s why it went onto individual to
start with. But when she went on sick basically tr there was
only me and I.
Theresa went on holiday fc for 2 weeks, }. _: went on
sick so it only left me and! GRO_' so it was just
impossible to keep it on individual. Which is why we
moved
DM OK so in January we have got this £7,500 loss. Just try
and recap as much as you can to what happened when
you balanced and you found that shortage.
18.18 JS I was in the early hours the next morning and I didn’t roll
over that night, I went in the next morning and rechecked
everything, got everything rechecked and it was still the
same
DM And who was in that week
JS 0
DM So she was back off sick leave
JS Yes
19.20 JS She came back in December but her unit was always
short anyway
DM Right what do the staff have to make good their own
losses
JS Yes unless they have balanced under and ive balanced
over then we would give it because it could have been
something that had been passed wrong but everything
that was given to them and everything that was given to
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Summary of Tape Recorded Interview (continued)
me was checked by me or by them. But her stock unit
was wrong anyway.
20.03 DM So this £7,500 what stock unit was it in
JS It was showing up in AA because that’s the main stock
unit we were all using then.
DM Right so it was a shared stock and everyone was using
AA.
JS Yes
DM What was the shortage in
JS Cash
DM And what did you do
20.14 JS I just made the cash look like it was correct
DM And how did you do that
JS Just by making it as if it was there but it wasn’t and then
had a word with one of the girls I worked with and she
went off sick
DM Who was that
JS
loss but not the amount.
DM So you made your cash look like you had £7,500 more
JS Yes
DM What denomination did you add it onto
21.24 SB Did you inflate it by just the full amount in one
denomination or did you spread it amongst denominations
JS Well I just spread it between £10 and £20
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DM Why did you do that instead of showing the loss
21.34 JS Because it was a £7,500 loss and it’s not something im in
a position to make right and to be fair and I know it
sounds stupid and ive never been in that position before
never.
JS explains that her first few weeks at Bodmin Road were
terrible with big losses.
DM With this £7,500 what benefit is it to hide it rather than
show it
JS I thought that whoever was taking it was putting it back.
SB Why would you think that
DM Because ive never been in that position before. lve never
ever had a balance show a large amount of money and
the only physical way that sort of money could of not been
there is if it has been removed from there.
SB But if somebody stolen £7,500, why would they put it
back.
JS I don’t know
SB Why would you think that they were going to put it back.
JS I don’t know stupidity, I really don’t know. I wish I did know
DM What made you think that somebody had taken it as
opposed to a mistake being made
JS Because that amount of money just doesn’t go missing.
23.12 DM Did you phone anyone up
JS No
DM So if you have not been in that position before why didn’t
you phone and get advice
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JS Beacause all I could think of was if I was having to pay,
because of the fact that I have to cover the shortages and
the gains I were the one who has to be responsible for it.
DM But by adding it onto your cash when it wasn’t there, do
you think that was responsible.
23.45 JS No
DM Did you know it was wrong to do that
JS Yeah its defrauding isn’t it
DM Its falsifying an accounting document and falsifying what
is in the office after you have already said the reason for
the balance
SB Did you know it was a criminal offence to falsify your
accounts.
JS Yes like ive said it sounds daft really. It’s a large amount
of money and I hope it gets found. I can be investigated in
any way and I have nothing to hide.
Discussion takes place to decide when office went into
branch trading
DM So the next week what happened at the balance
JS It was the same short again
DM And what did you do with the cash
JS I falsified it on again
SB You say by the same what do you mean the same. How
much was it out the following week.
JS £9,500
SB So it wasn’t the same then was it
25.25 JS No
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DM It was an extra £2,000
SB Gone up by another £2,000
JS It just Kept going up
SB OK lets take it in stages. You have just had your first loss
of £7,500 in the January and the following week it’s gone
up to £9,500 so £7,500 is the previous loss so your have
rolled that loss forward and you have ended up with
JS another £2,000 loss
Yes
25.54 SB Just to go back to what you said a few minutes ago that
when the £7,500 went missing you thought whoever was
taking it would put it back so now you have got within a
week you have 2 instances where £7,500 went and then
another £2,00 gone
JS Yes
SB What did you think then that the person was going to put
that back
JS To be honest really I have just, yeah I did. lve never been
in this
SB What staff was in the 2"? week
JS The same
SB So you have the same staff and 2 instances. What was
said to the staff
27.30 JS Just to keep their eyes open really because mistakes
were being made
SB And what did they say
27.41 JS They just said they would. I said that shortages were
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29.24
29.36
30.32
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SB
JS
SB
JS
SB
JS
JS
SB
JS
going by and they just needed to be careful of what they
were doing and to keep their eyes and ears open
basically
So do you believe the shortages have occurred by the
staff being incompetent and handing it out to customers
I would say its been confident its not been handed out to
customers because there have many times that
customers have come back and they have been short
changed so if it was being handed out they wouldn’t come
back and say they have been short changed.
Discussion about the customers returning to complain
takes place.
When you were on individual stock units, how was the
balancing within the office
Quite good actually. It was up and down but it was usually
‘© "I or ours that she had given me something back
or we had not given her it back.
So why in January did you not go back to individual
balancing
Because I was short staffed at the time
There has been an incident a few weeks back ive gone in
on Sat afternoon. Ive basically gone in to do to sort the
popos out because I was having a week off and I checked
the draws before I left and there was money stuffed in a
draw underneath a card
Could you trace that back to someone
Who had been there was!__
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SB And who was in charge when you were off
Js [
“I but she came back from!
Friday came to work on the Monday and then she was
only there that week then off on holiday.
DM Who has keys for your office
JS I have them on a Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday,
L always has a set as she is listed as a key
holder as she lives 2 minutes across the road. The other
set goes between
DM When you said I
have the safe keys
JS Yes and door keys
DM So if you suspected: _ I of taking this money, why
did you let her have keys
JS Because she was literally 2 minutes across the road
DM But if she is taking the money, that your going to have to
be responsible for, why let her have a set of safe keys
JS When I came back for the week that I was off,
i irefused to let her have any keys because, I don’t
know why but she is not having the keys.
31.58 SB Your in charge, you have got one member of staff saying
she is not letting another member of staff have keys. If
this member of staff is the one you suspect of pinching
the money of you but you still as IGRO! said to you, you
still insist on giving her a set of keys and basically the run
of the office.
JS Yeah
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32.32
33.15
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SB
JS
SB
JS
SB
JS
SB
JS
SB
JS
Its like letting a kid loose in a sweet factory isn’t it
I Know but its because, I live at the other end of Hull, I
always tend to end up getting there late and that’s the
reason why ive always let her have the keys. She always
had the keys before I went there
What time do you normally get in
I am meant to be there at 8.15 but I don’t normally start till
8.30 by the time I get there
So its only 15 minutes. What time does the office open
8.30
What time does
__} get in
One morning she was there at 8.10 and another it didn’t
open till 9.
Why not change your hours, put it forward or leave the
house earlier. Why do you suspect 4
She has been, when I first took the office as manager
when I took it off Caroline Rand the first thing I was ever
told was to watch her because she is not to be trusted.
For what reasons I don’t know. I Know she was
investigated whilst working fe “1 know it was
to do with money but I don’t know what for. She was
cleared and reinstated but it is basically what people have
said just don’t trust her, she cant be trusted. She doesn’t
really divulge anything about her life but a few months
ago}
!, I said to her the next day :
ey. She said!
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34.47 DM When was that. When did the conversation take place
JS A couple of months ago.!”
DM Are you frightened of:
35.05 JS No
DM Does she have some sort of hold over you
JS No
DM You have got to see it from our point of view. When you
first went there you were told don’t trust her she has been
investigated
Js Her stock unit (/ I!) was down by £1400 ,
customers kept coming back, to be fair it was customers
you get to know them, you know who they are and you
know who would and who wouldn’t lie and you can tell
and one of them was a disabled person who came back
and said she had shortchanged them by £100. I wouldn't
say go ahead!
SB I understand that. The shortchanging the customers by
I pay them back its quite alright
£100 and its happened on a few occasions. To
shortchange a customer by £100 is an awful lot
JS Yes it is
SB Also, after she had shortchanged the first customer, what
did you say to! ;
40.00 JS I gave her a warning for it after the first time because it
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was £300 in a week
40.04 SB After the third time, £300 in one week
JS Yes
DM DM clarifies that the North Bransholme was on branch
trading in 23/11/2005 TP9
DM When in branch trading did you move each week to the
next balancing period (BP)
JS No
DM So you rolled it for a month
JS A month Yes
DM How often did you do your cash declarations then
JS Once a month
DM So your cash decs were only once a month. So when you
say the first shortage is £7,500 round about January, are
you sure it was Jan and not earlier
JS Yes round about Christmas time coming into January
DM So this £7,500 would that be in branch trading 10
covering December 23” up to mid Jan so would the
inflation on the cash be in that
JS It started then yes
Master tape seal 043366 signed by all parties
Tape ends 14.10
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