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POST OFFICE LTD CONFIDENTIAL: INVESTIGATION, LEGAL
To Juliet McFarlane
Principal Lawyer
Date 13/05/10
REF: Wendy Vivian Buffrey - POLTD/0809/0177
Further to your memo dated 23 April 2010, I now make the following points:
1) I have discussed the proposal of solely accepting a plea to fraud of £5,000 with Mr Paul
Southin, Financial Investigator and we are both in agreement that this is unacceptable. Our
Joint opinion is that the fraud charge should remain at £26,256.63, which may or may not
include a separate further charge for the £5,000 remittance deficit.
2) In response to the Defence Statement:
i) On page 2, 3 paragraph the statement refers to ‘mistakes’ on 14 May 2008,
which she tried to correct on 21 May and 09 July. The May dates relate to the
stock adjustments of 630 self adhesive stamps x 100 but I am unaware of what
she tried to ‘correct’ on 09 July.
ii) That same paragraph goes on to refer to a cash deposit of £10,600 accepted
as £19,600 on 15 November 2008. I can confirm that Horizon shows an
Alliance & Leicester business deposit entry for £19,600 on that day. However
this does not ‘form part of the accounting problems’, as the deficit of £9,000 it
created in the accounts was declared by Mrs Buffrey when completing a Branch
Trading Statement (BTS) on 10 December 2008 (day prior to audit). Mrs
Buffrey settled centrally the net deficit in the accounts of £9,065.08. As such,
this did not affect the resulting deficit identified during the audit the following
day. Mrs Buffrey has received credit for this amount, which can be seen on
item 13 of the Unused Material (copy included with this memo). This shows a
credit of £9,000 (negative entry) in respect of an ASL deposit and £9,065.08
(positive entry) due to this being settled centrally.
The BTS completed on 10 December was not supplied to me and I have asked
the auditor Judy Balderson) to see if she has it, although the discrepancies and
House keeping can be seen on the Horizon data extract schedule I e-mailed to
you on 30 March 2010. Do you/counsel want this schedule produced or to be
included with the Unused Material?
In her interview, Mrs Buffrey states that since the stock adjustment problems in
May, the accounts were running constantly at around £20k short, which
increased to £25k following the remittance discrepancy on 26 September
2008. If she is now suggesting that this £9,000 A&L error is ‘part of the
accounting problems’ then her loss being carried from May could have been no
more than £11k, which would have increased to £16k on 26/09 and then to
£25k on 15/11.
iii) The final paragraph on page 2 suggests that the stock errors must be just
errors as ‘she simply did not have the quantities of stock that she wrongly
declared on the system’. This is irrelevant as you can input whatever figures
you chose, either through error or deliberately (if covering a loss or trying to
cloud issues) irrespective of how much stock you physically have at the branch.
It also says that she did not ‘have the correlative amount of cash in the system
to take off the premises’. It can be seen at 21.52 of the first tape summary
POST OFFICE LTD CONFIDENTIAL: INVESTIGATION, LEGAL
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POST OFFICE LTD CONFIDENTIAL: INVESTIGATION, LEGAL
(GDB/4) that Gary Thomas asks the question; ‘/s /t likely then in stock unit 6 at
your branch you would have had nearly £23,000 in cash in there though? To
which Mrs Buffrey’s response is; ‘Quite possibly.
iv) Regarding the points raised in section 3 of the Defence Statement I now
enclose copies of items 1-3, 7-13 and 16-17 as listed on the Unused Material
Schedule. I have not copied all the Branch Trading Statements which are prior
to the indictment period (Item 14) as the print on most is very faint and most of
the discrepancies illegible. Please advise if you require me to photocopy these.
In respect of item 12 on the Unused Material schedule I enclose 3 x copies of
the Cash Centre CCTV footage, which can be viewed using Windows media
player, although the £5,000 remittance shortage has never been in dispute by
Mrs Buffrey.
In respect of the second & third points made in section 3 of the Defence
Statement I am unable to comment on what is meant by ‘accounting problems’.
I have requested statements from Fujitsu in respect of the Horizon data
supplied and in respect of calls made to Horizon Support Helpdesk (HSH)
during period of indictment at Up Hatherley Post Office. Once received, I will
submit originals & copies in the normal way.
In respect of the final item in section 3, I have produced a further statement,
which hopefully explains in more detail the process for adjusting stock items
and covers how schedules (GDB/8 & GDB/9) were compiled. Original & copy
statements are enclosed with this memo, with associated GSOO9 forms
In reference to the letter from Rowbis Solicitors dated 23 April 2010 I make the following
comments in response to the points they raise.
1. a,b&c) These points are covered in further statement from me enclosed with this memo.
2. I have photocopied these again (‘Best Copy’) and are included with this memo, although some
entries are still barely legible, which is due to the poor quality of the originals.
3. a) The CD ROMS show all transactions conducted within their representative periods but when I
copied these onto disks the auto filter had been applied, whilst I had conducted my analysis. In
order to view all transactions just click on the drop down arrow on the Product no. column and
drag the bar up to the top and click on ‘All’, to view all transactions. Product no. 4382 relates to a
Lloyds personal cash deposit.
b) This is because the auto filter is set to ‘All’. As detailed above, this is the setting which needs
to be applied to all of these schedules to view all transactions. I have copied a schedule of Horizon
Product Codes, as of April 2008 onto a disk (x3) which are enclosed with this memo.
c) Fujitsu supplies us with data broken down in two ways. The first spreadsheet for each period
shows all transactions conducted including all items in serve customer (SC) mode as well as
transfers, remittances, stock adjustments, reversals and declared discrepancies. The second
spreadsheet predominately details things like reports printed/previewed, cash declarations &
variances and users logging on / off Horizon. Again, these appear as the result of entries made by
an operator/s at Up Hatherley Post Office.
Please also note that I have received from Chesterfield microfiche copies of Lloyds TSB deposits in
the name of Mr D C Buffrey, with associated Batch Control Vouchers (BCV's) covering the period 17
January 2008 to 17 October 2009.
POST OFFICE LTD CONFIDENTIAL: INVESTIGATION, LEGAL
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These were requested by counsel during our case conference, should Mrs Buffrey enter ‘not guilty’
pleas. Please advise whether you want me to get someone at Chesterfield to produce these or
whether they should be added to the Unused Material. Ms Balderson seems to recall that the
private shop side of Up Hatherley Post Office sold hardware items and pet food, although she
points out that she may be mistaken as the audit was a long time ago. I note from the antecedents
form completed after Mrs Buffrey was interviewed that she didn’t know how much net income was
generated in the shop but estimated gross takings of around £100 a day. As such, it would appear
that without scrutinising the shop accounts we would be unable to say whether the cash deposits
into Mr Buffrey’s Lloyds account were from shop takings or fraudulent entries made on Horizon i.e.
no money placed in the till.
Please advise me if you / counsel require any further information at this stage.
Graham Brander
Security Advisor
POST OFFICE LTD CONFIDENTIAL: INVESTIGATION, LEGAL