Summary of Tape
Recorded Interview
POL00044656
POL00044656
Person Janet Louise SKINNER (JS) Exhibit No:
Interviewed Number of pages: 10
Place of Bransholme Police Station Signature of
Interview Hull interviewing officer
producing exhibit
Date of 1st June 2006
Interview
Time 14.59 hours Time 15.32
commenced concluded
Duration of 33 minutes Tape 043368
Interview reference no
Interviewing Diane MATTHEWS (DM)
Officer(s) Stephen BRADSHAW (SB)
Other persons
present
Tape Person Text
counter I speaking
times
0.00 SB Legal Rights reiterated
Reminded still under caution
Friend offered
SB recaps the discrepancies in the office and the
remittance received in the office.
4.11 SB Is your office a paying out office rather than taking money
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Summary of Tape Recorded Interview (continued)
4.40
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JS
SB
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JS
SB
JS
SB
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JS
Yes
Why did you get £32,500 in last week
Because it was a bank holiday and everyone was getting
paid early. Green Giros should have been paid and
coming in early and benefits that was due to be paid
Friday which was Mondays benefit. So them due Monday
Tuesday were paid last week.
SB has discussion with JS over when benefit payments
due.
Did you ask for any extra cash
I just rang up and ordered it and changed the change
order
So you rang up and changed that cash
Yes
Why was that
For change
Why would you change it from your normal operating level
of 13 or 6 or 4 to 32
Because of the bank holiday weekend
But you have suddenly increased it £28,000
It was just for the Bank Holiday weekend money that’s all.
I wasn’t in on the Friday anyway
Are you sure it wasn’t because there was no money in the
safe
No
If you had no money in the safe because you were down
But a lot of it was change
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Summary of Tape Recorded Interview (continued)
SB No
JS We got a lot of change in Friday as well
DM On Tuesday when Diane went you only had £10,000 in
the safe
JS Yes
DM Or in total including all your coin so if you hadn't of
increased it so much, you wouldn't be able to open cos
you would have had nothing. Were you aware of that
when you upped your order that you would have had to of
upped it sufficiently because otherwise you would have
had nothing. The way the money was going out of your
office you would have had nothing. So were you
compensating a bit in that order because you knew you
hadn't got what the system thought you had
7.01 JS Yes but no excessively
DM When did you order that
JS It was Wednesday
DM And at that point it was £40,000 short
JS Yeah but it was for change more than anything
DM Coin
JS Yeah
DM You do a lot of coin
JS Yeah because the pubs order and take out a lot of
change
SB But if they come in and take a lot of change, they give you
a lot of cash you are swapping coin for cash
JS Yes
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Summary of Tape Recorded Interview (continued)
SB Which still doesn’t go with the figures of what you have
got there to pay out. That’s what we are getting at
JS Yeah I know
SB You only had £25,000 close of play on the Wednesday
JS Yes
SB You decided that either that’s not enough to cover if that’s
what you say about people getting paid the benefits early.
Whats your normal giro weekly total
JS I don’t know. It depends. We have a lot of pubs paying in.
SB But that’s paying in and you said earlier you are more of a
paying out office
JS Yeah we are.
DM DM shows snapshot for TP3 shows from Thursday 26/5 to
Tuesday 30/5 have paid out £4470 in greens and
£61,891.99 withdrawals with Pin including £38,885 in post
office card account.
10.45 DM I do not know how you managed to do it without running
out of money. You pay out such a lot every week and this
is only 2 and a half days, 3 days at the most. What a
balancing act you have had to do. You have got that
much going out
11.35 DM Have you ever said to whoever is your biggest payer in
that comes in with a couple of grand whatever. You will
know your biggest customer . Have you ever had to say
we are running out of money here can you bank early
today
JS Yes I have done that throughout the years of working in a
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Post Office
DM When was the last time you have done it here
JS Last week
DM Who did you phone
JS Wine ferry pub
DM And asked to pay in early because you were running out
of money
JS Yes
DM What day last week
JS Thursday morning
DM You had £65,000 on Thursday morning and I take it you
were hammered
JS By 11 o’clock yes
12.28 DM And you hardly had any money. What time did your rem
come in
JS 12, half 12
DM So because you were getting hammered with people
coming wanting their money as is on your statement, you
had to phone someone up and say we need some money
12.56 JS Well no I just said can you drop your banking in early cos
they usually come early anyway
DM But did you do it because you were running out of funds
JS Well yeah it was running low but by the time they had got
there the rem had been
DM But it was still enough to cause you a bit of concern that
you may run out of money here
JS No it wasn’t it was Tuesday it wasn’t Thursday. Thursday
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was working out of 1 stock unit.
DM Right so Tuesday you got a rem in of £13,500
JS Yeah at 10 past 5
JS It was running low there was times I’d go to the bank
machine outside and drawn my own money out
DM Since this moneys gone missing
JS Yeah
DM How many times have you had to do that
JS A few times
DM Is that because you didn’t have money in your till
JS Yeah
DM Have you ever run out of money, actually run out
14.41 JS No
JS explains individual stock units in office with AA being a
shared stock all others individual.
DM What Steve is getting at is if you had a problem with an
individual at your office it would have been a simple job to
transfer an amount of cash and stock out of shared stock
AA
JS I wasn’t able to do that later on
15.25 SB But what he is trying to say here is if you have got a
member of staff that you suspect is stealing from you right
JS Yeah
DM At a massive rate of knots and they have done it before
JS Yeah
DM You have got a shared stock unit that everybody uses
JS Yeah
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Summary of Tape Recorded Interview (continued)
DM You have also got created on your system BB stock which
you don’t use, its inactive
JS Yeah
DM It is a 2 minute job to transfer a bit of cash and stock from
your shared into BB and say to the person you think is
dishonest, this is your stock unit, an individual one, you
use it
18.55 JS The problem by them
DM Even so it was there, in one week £20,000 has gone so
that’s £20,000 you may of stopped who knows. Why didn’t
you do that. When she came back it would have been
nothing to use that inactive stock unit why didn’t you do it
JS I don’t know
DM Is it easier to have an AA stock
JS Yes
DM So its for ease rather than to put some controls in place
JS Yes
DM talks about setting up stock units
JS One of the people I know said to me the problem I have is
I think everyone is my friend and everybody’s not and the
problem is im too trusting and im so laid back im falling
over myself
21.54 DM From what you have said to me today you correct me if I
am way of the mark here but what ive seen and what you
have told me today you really haven’t taken control of the
situation or the office
JS No I haven't
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DM That how it seems to me that unwittingly you couldn't
have helped them more if you tried apart from putting it in
the bag for them
JS I can sit here with a clear conscience cos I have not
stolen anything
DM speaks with JS over terms of contract and any
evidence pointing to somebody else.
24.45 JS I rang one of them and told them on the phone not to
come into work because the auditors was coming and she
cried on the phone and apologised.
DM Why did she apologise
JS I don’t know.
DM Did she know what was going on. Is it an open
JS It was Katherine, she cried on the phone when I told her
yesterday on her way to work just to let you know don’t be
bothering to go to work cos you cant go in cos im going in
to meet the auditors and she just started to cry on the
phone and said im so sorry. And that was it.
JS advised to discuss next steps with a solicitor who she
is meeting tomorrow.
DM explains what happens next in terms of this interview
and investigation.
DM You did say earlier that you were willing to give us access
to your bank account and search of your premises
JS That's fine
DM You don’t have a problem with that
28.02 JS If you are searching my property as long as im aware and
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the kids arnt around when it’s being done when my
children are present.
SB Would your children be present now
JS Yes
SB So at this moment in time you wouldn't consent to a
search
JS Not while my children are present no
SB Can you just fill a form in
JS It's not because of anything to hand I just don’t want my
kids involved
SB That’s ok it’s a voluntary search and we just have to ask
the questions for it you see.
DM Your bank details and two other forms will be done off
tape and its normal procedure we do them
DM explains what the forms are
DM We have got an audit shortage of £59,175.39. A
statement that you gave to Diane Hoyles saying that you
knew you were £40,000 short but you had no idea where
it was, that document is signed by yourself
JS Yes
DM Having discussed this situation with you on tape, we find
out there is a £1,400 loss which was in Katherine Ayres
stock in November 04, she was making that amount good
in small amounts putting a bag in the safe
JS Some weeks none some weeks she took some back.
That loss was being covered up either by Katherine with
your permission or by yourself your cash was inflated
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Summary of Tape Recorded Interview (continued)
between your £10 and £20
JS Yes
DM And that’s since November 04
JS Yes
DM That situation has carried on until the present day
however since January this year your losses have been
getting greater and greater starting of in January with
£7,500. February you said it went to £9,500 until we know
trading period 02 25/5/06 was £40,253.85 which was
being placed in CC stock.
30.35 JS Yes
DM Since that day to the 31° till the audit team went in there
is another £19,000 missing from the safe. These amounts
have been added to your cash everytime you have done a
cash account or a branch trading statement again
between £10 and £20 in order to hide the loss. Is that
correct
JS Yes
DM And not to show it through your accounts
JS Yes
DM You knew it was wrong to do that
JS Yes
DM And in doing so you have falsified an accounting
document required to balance the Post Office
JS Yes
SB Just to ask you again have you stolen that £59,000
31.25 JS No
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SB Do you suspect anybody of stealing that £59,000
JS Not at this time I suspect everybody
SB Do you have any proof or any reason why you suspect
everybody
JS No, no reason no proof, no different to what they would
say about me
SB Between November 04 and May you made full
admissions that you falsified the accounts each and every
week when they were due
JS Yes
32.01 SB Between that period, is that correct
JS Yes
Second caution given
CS019 handed to JS
Master tape seal 043368 signed
Tape ended 15.32
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