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Susan Sinclair letter 07/03/2022, 15:26
Treetops,
Murtle Den Road,
Milltimber,
Aberdeen
AB13 OHS
SCCRC,
4th Floor,
17 Rentield Street,
Glasgow.
G2 5AH Attention of Daniel Fenn
Dear Sir,
Review Susan Sinclair DF/2914
I refer to previous communications and now enclose herewith signed copy of my Report in respect of
the conviction of the above named, which is now subject to review.
As I indicate in my Report it is far from complete due to the lack of information and documents
available to me. I hope that it will be of some assistance.
Please acknowledge receipt.
Yours.sincerelv......
GRO
jaléalm Gadien (retired)
Sheriff M
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Susan Sinclair Report
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Sheriffdom of Grampian Highland and Islands at Peterhead
Report by
Sheriff (retired) Malcolm Garden
re
PF v Susan Sinclair
lam requested to write a report in. respect of this prosecution and conviction and have agreed to do-
so subject to the following clear caveats.
FIRST, this case took place in April 2004, almost 18 years ago. As a result I have little or no actual
recollection of any details.
SECOND, I have not been provided with any paperwork, other than copies of my own notes.
I do not have a copy of the complaint and cannot accurately assess the charge(s).
I do not have a copy of the extract conviction and cannot accurately assess the outcome.
THIRD, and of greatest concern, I do not have access to the Joint Minutes which were submitted by
the parties. In my experience solicitors often failed to understand that the content of a Joint Minute is
not evidence but fact which must be accepted by the Court. Accordingly, in absence of copies of
those Minutes there are a significant parts of the evidence, which must be held as established fact,
and which are not available to me. 1 can tell from my notes that the submission of the Minutes
resulted in the Crown not leading a number of their witnesses.
There are, accordingly, potentially critical narts of the prosecution case which have been lost.
The Crown’s first witness was Margaret McKay who carried out holiday relief work for the Post Office
in North East Scotland. She had operated in this capacity at Stuartfield Post Office in December 2002
then again in February 2003. On her first visit there was no handover. She found a balancing
discrepancy whereby the cash balance did not match the “snap shot" balance. She checked it 3 or 4
times. She telephoned the accused who told her that she had spotted the discrepancy on the
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he
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Susan Sinclair Report O70H2022, 12:42
previous Friday balance. She had been very busy. The explanation did not make sense as the
balancing was normaily done on a Wednesday. She phoned the accused again and she said she had
been in touch with the Post Office regarding the error. The witness phoned the Post Office as she had
to report her findings. The accused then phoned her on her second day there to tell her not to worry
about the discrepancy. The witne:
proceeded to undertake the balancing process, did not find
the missing figure, which she thought was circa £10,000, documented and declared the discrepancy
and then left at the end.of her relief period.
She returned to undertake holiday cover in early February. The accused was on holiday. There was
again no handover. She was asked to check the balance on the morning of her return which she
would have carried out in any event. There was stili a discrepancy, now slightly higher than before,
around £10,500,
The witness was shown Crown Production No 1 which was a typed note of instructions from the
accused. It mentioned the discrepancy.and stated (here my notes are not entirely clear) “Have found
the £10K in Giro error but have to still to process as if we had it ...should be getting an error thingy.
Do your daily balance. Don’t panic. What a bother. Silly me.” The witness contacted the Post Office
again and was told to remain there for the rest of the holiday period until the accused returned:
There was no further communication about the missing money. She was not involved in any audit.
The witness was cross examined on general Post Office procedure and processes. There was a
computerised system which recorded payments. received. If an automated payment a receipt was
produced and.a copy kept at the Office. If a manual.payment it was similar. Giro slips were sent off
daily. All cash entries were recorded. The figures in the computer would only be correct if the correct
figures had been inputted. They were all separately recorded on the computer. Any error in an entry
should be noted by the double check done every night. There had been no external audit done in the
period between her two visits.
‘On re examination the witness confirmed that she had checked for any payment slips which had not
been recorded on the computer but had found none. Each day a print off was obtained from the
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computer and showed a balance which should be the same as the actual cash balance in the office.
On each occasion she was there the discrepancy was slightly different.
The second witness was Anthony Dean Robertson, an Investigation Manager for the Post Office, who
was based in Gateshead. He had been instructed to investigate a cash discrepancy at Stuartfieid Post
Office. He had been shown a statement from the holiday relief Postmaster. He confirmed that the
Post Office dealt with numerous different cash transactions. The system operated was the Horizon
Computer System. It had a cash period from Thursday morning to Wednesday evening. A daily cash
declaration should be made but not ail offices did that. They were required to make a weekiy
declaration balancing their cash they held with the computer record. All transactions should have
back up paperwork.The input to the computer should be made when the customer was present. At
the end of the day a print out should be taken summarising the transactions. In a small but busy
office it was not essential to balance at the end of each day. They could do the reconciliation at a
quiet time later. He could not comment on training detail but knew that all Post Office employees
received instruction and training.
They had been advised of the discrepancy at the end of December and again in February. They had
decide to leave an audit until the Postmaster retumed to work. They had gone to audit on 20
February, when he and two colleagues had attended there at 8.30 am. He identified the accused as
the sub Postmaster whom they met there that morning.
At the start of the audit the accused made a statement that there was “a serious shortage of cash.”
This was noted and signed by the accused. A check revealed that there was a shortage of
approximately £10,700. This was put to the accused whose noted and signed response was “quite
possibly.” He was shown Crown Production 2 and confirmed this to be a print out from the computer
after his colleague had inputted his count and which showed a discrepancy of £10,749.58. That sum
was missing. He spoke in some more detail to that document. There was no search of the office for
additional paperwork. The accused was later interviewed, under caution, at her home. He was shown
Crown Productions 3 to 7 which were weekly accounts obtained from the Stuartfield Post Office which
showed minor discrepancies for the weeks they represented.
de
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Susan Sinctair Report 07/03/2022, 12:42
HERE I SHOULD STATE THAT I HAVE IT NOTED THAT AT THIS POINT A JOINT MINUTE WAS.
LODGED “DEALING WITH THE TRANSCRIPTS.” I would presume, but cannot be certain, that this
would have confirmed the accuracy of those transcripts and perhaps an acceptance of their content
as fact. There were 4 tapes, three from the interview on 20 February and a fourth from a separate
interview in Aberdeen on 27 February.
In interview she stated that the “cash had been off for weeks.” She had claimed that she had phoned
the helpline (for postmasters) and asked for time to investigate. There was no recent record of such
a call. The only record of a helpline call was in June 2002 when she had mentioned a £4,000
shortage and asked if she could put it in a suspense account. She could not explain where that
£4,000 had gone nor why she had not declared it in her weekly accounts, If it had been an error then
an error message would have been generated by the system. She had declared minor discrepancies
but not the £10,000 discrepancy. She offered no explanation. She said that she did not have the
money (£10,000). She thought it was just errors.
He confirmed that the system was that errors reported or found would result in a error notice being
issued to the Postmaster requiring rectification within 3 months. There was nothing of that nature in
this case. Small errors had been reported, going both ways, but nothing to indicate or explain the
£4,000 or £10,000 discrepancies.
In interview. she had stated that she had debts of around £16,000 but denied taking money from the
Post Office to pay off some of these. When asked why stie had lied to the substitute Postmaster
about the discrepancy she denied lying but said she did not want the substitute to feei responsibie.
She could not say how long the discrepancies had existed or how it had increased from £4,000 to
£10,000. She gave no indication of what she thought the error was so that could not be checked.
A cash account containing her signature was produced to her and she admitted that it showed an
amount overstated by over £10,000 which she knew to be false. She knew that statement to be
-cfiminai and dishonest. She was shown the cash statements for other weeks which she admitted she
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had falsified. She agreed that was wrong and dishonest. She could give no explanation of where the
money had gone. She had denied theft or negligence but accepted that it had been incompetence.
The discrepancy had not suddenly increased but had done so gradually. She did not think anyone eise
could have taken money from the Office. The final meeting took place with her Union Representative
present. She agreed she would pay the money to the Post Office because she considered her contract
required her to do so but not because she was criminally responsible.
Under cross examination the witness confirmed that the accused was an agent of the Post Office and
had a manager. There required to be a weekly reconciliation of the cash account. Only the manager
could give permission for this to be deferred (as for holidays). It was bad practice for a postmaster to
stockpile entries and put them through on the balancing day (Wednesday). Giros had to be banked
‘on the day. He accepted that human error sometimes meant these rules were nat strictly adhered to,
The accused had mentioned that she had some part time help. He had ‘not interviewed the two
people involved.
He was not able to speak to the audit procedures nor the precise operation of the auditor. The
contact manager was present at the investigation as it was for him to decide on further procedure.
Here after the investigation he had cautioned and suspended the accused. During the investigation
she had denied taking or using the missing money.
At this point the Court adjourned and on the advice of parties allocated two further days for
evidence.
On resumption of the case (on 7 April) there was.a delay in starting as I was advised that parties
were negotiating a second Joint Minute. I was advised that this Minute would reduce the number of
Crown witnesses iv be calied to one more. I do not have a note of how many further witnesses
would otherwise have been called.
‘The Crown's final witness was Alex McKenzie the Post Office Auditor from their Audit Team. He had
14 years of auditing experience and had worked in Post Offices prior to becoming an auditor. He
ke
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confirmed that he and others attended at the sub Post Office at Stuartfield for a surprise audit. He
met the accused whom he identified as the sub Postmaster. He had checked the cash in the office
against the most recent cash declaration which had been declared by the accused the previous night.
There was a discrepancy of over £10,000. There was also a small stock discrepancy of around
£40.00. The accused had said to him that she was aware of the shortage but had not thought it was
that much. Cash held in Offices could vary depending on the amount and type of business they
undertook. He expected an.office of this size and location to hold around £15,000 to. £16,000 in cash.
He looked at certain of the productions containing cash declarations from the accused and noted
these at approximately £18,000, £25,000 and £36,000. The discovered discrepancy seemed to be
approximately 50 to 60% of the normal total sum held. It was not his function to trace where the
money had gone although he could analyse recent errors.
Under cross examination he confirmed that there was no system of regular audits and that most
audits were surprise audits. He confirmed that the accused had not’been subject of an audit from the
time of her starting with the Post Office. That was not a surprise to him. The Horizon system was
used to input everything including money. and: cheques paid in, bills paid, pensions etc., It covered
the whole spectrum. It was not his remit to check errors. That could be done at various places
depending on which items were involved such as Giro banking, Premium and Saving Bonds.
On re examination he confirmed that the shortfall was the difference between the actual cash held on
the day of the audit and the declaration made by the accused on the night before.
The Crown then lodged the second Joint Minute and closed it’s case.
The accused elected to give evidence on her own behalf.) GRO
{she started as temporary Sub Postmaster
at Stuartfield in April 2002 and was made permanent in August 2002. Prior to that she had worked at
Elion Post Office as a manager but had received little formal training. She had been shown various
exercises and a Trainer had appeared on a few days but generally she had been told by the
Postmaster to get on with it, She lived: and heard that the sub postmaster there wanted
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to relinquish the position. She offered to help, put in an application and was appointed without
interview. She worked largely on her own with someone coming in to cover if she had leave. There
was an audit done before she started and someone came through to check before she was given the
position permanently. There was also a shop selling various items. The stock was worth about
£5,000, most of it being cards. The shop was open seven days each week but the Post Office six days
with Wednesday and Saturday being haif days.
The post office dealt with various transactions including paying bills through Girobank, with no upper
limit, National Savings accounts, Alliance and Leicester Building Society accounts, Bonds and Pension
benefits. It was a busy rural office covering a wide area. It was used by businesses in the area and
would handle deposits of £1,500 to £3,000 at least two times per week. She recalled the biggest
transaction she dealt with was the purchase of a £10,000 bond,
The office used the Horizon accounting system. It involved a lot of specific procedures. It was
connected to Headquarters. The shop business was conducted separately through the till, There was
a bar code scanner for telephone, gas and such payments. If you inputted a wrong figure the system
would tell you. It was complicated. Paperwork was also required. On a busy day, such as Monday,
balancing was done at the-end of the day. Stock was counted only on Wednesday. Cheques, Giro slips
and National Savings vouchers were sent at the end of each day, each to different places. Sometimes
post was also sent at lunchtimes. As it was a small office she did not balance every day. Usually she
did the cash declaration daily but sometimes left it to the following day. Errors could conceivably
octur as the double nought key was next to the nought key bui she did not recall making any such
error. If customers came back and claimed that they had handed over too much, such as two notes
sticking together, she would believe them.
In June 2002 she became aware of the cash account being out of balance by a significant amount.
She sought help from the help desk and was told not to put the figure in a suspense account but to
contact her line manager. She knew he would not get back quickly and asked if she could feave it.
She was told that she was responsible personally and to take care. she did not contact the line
manager. The system said she should have £4,000 more than she actually had in her cash. reserve.
da
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She had been off one day and thought there might have been an error then. She searched for the
error and in the meantime kept reporting the cash balance as the figure shown on the computer. The
balance had been correct the previous week so she thought she would find the error easily. She had
‘one previous problem with a £500 discrepancy but had managed to sort that. She had been sent £10
notes in a £20 note bag. It had taken one month to resolve. There had also been an issue which had
arisen before she started and which had taken over one year to resolve.
The £4,000 discrepancy did not resolve. It gradually grew. She thought that she must be processing
something incorrectly. The shortfall gradually increased to around £10,000. The increases were never
in the same amount. There were no calls from the Post Office to see if the situation had resolved.
She did not call them again. There were three ladies who helped part time. She did-not ask them to.
balance when they were in. She had nat told them of the shortfall issue but thought they would have
seen that the declarations were not accurate.
Tn February 2003 rs McKay had
provided cover. She had also provided cover for some days at Xmas 2002. She had not then told her
of the discrepancy but when cKay had come to balance she noted the problem and phoned her.
She had told the relief that it was her responsibility and not to worry. There had been email contact
iwhen Mrs McKay had confirmed all was fine. On the Wednesday when she
returned she (accused) had inputted the balance. The auditors then appeared without warning on the
following day. She had thought this was as a delayed result of her first contact. She was aware of the
£10,000 deficit and agreed that she was contractually liable to. pay it back. She had paid it back.
She estimated her net income ai { month. This was from her minimal salary, commission, and
drawings from the shop (£150). She had very little savings, perhaps £100. Her rent was £150. per
month, Council Tax and Rates about £9 or £10 per month and Electricity only £60 per year The
persons who heiped part time were on minimum wage based on £36 per day with no more than two
days each month. She stayed with her partner. She gave the Post Office investigators her full financial
details.
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She accepted that the initial deficit error had increased from June 2002 to February 2003 to £10,700.
She did not take any money. She did not gain personally. She had never been convicted of a crime of
dishonesty.
Under cross examination she accepted that she ran a car, paid for prior to her taking the position.
She had considerable debts of approximately £17,000 on which she made payments of £5/600 per
month which together with her rent used up all of her income, leaving nothing for food or clothes.
She denied taking money, from time to time, from the Post Office to finance her problems. Her
partner supported her financially. She had taken this position rather than a better paid one for the
benefit of the community who had supported her when she had split from her husband. From June
when the £4000 problem. arose she had hoped some kind of error message would come through the
system to explain the problem. No one picked up on the error. She did not know where the money
had gone. She did not believe it to have been taken by any of the people who helped her in the shop.
She had been shocked when she discovered the deficit which was considerable. She had made
contact through the help line. She did not have any phone records of her help line catl. She was
careful with her procedures after her first discovery, double checking for any errors. She found none
but the deficit increased to over £10,000. She accepted that she was putting in the incorrect numbers
in her weekly reports. She had not demanded help as she thought it would turn out to be a simple
matter. She accepted that the defiicit was growing as she made the false returns. Despite having time
to think, she was unable to come up with an explanation. She was not helping herself to money.
She would have expected an error notice to be generated if she was inputting wrong information.
She denied the suggestion that there was no wrong input merely her taking money. She had thought
and told Mrs McKay that she thought the error was in the Girobank. There were a higher level of
transactions there over the Xmas period: which: might explain. the increase in the deficit. There had.
been no problem with her work when she was at the Ellon office although her work had been
different.
She had not had steady employment before going to the Ellon office. She had been doing some shop
work. She had studied Psychology at College for three years, but not to degree level. She had not
le,
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found working for the Post Office difficult but it could be stressful. The office was busy for one
person. She said she had no explanation for the losses. It was suggested that she had started taking
smal! amounts and it had then multiplied but she denied she had taken anything.
On re examination, she confirmed that she was stil] in debt, now some £18/20,000 which included
the Stuartfield debt. She had sold her car in January 2003 for £700 which she had paid towards her
debts. She had not bought another car. She had been out of work for a time. The contents of her
letter to the relief postmaster had not been entirely true but she knew it was her responsibility and
did not want the relief to worry.
There was no further evidence.
In the Crown's submission there was no dispute that the money was missing and had gone so while
she was the Postmaster. The accused was an articulate and educated person who did not seem to
have any difficulties with the processes. It was her evidence that she trusted the part time staff and
did not believe that they were responsible. No error notices had been generated by the postal
authorities. She had been unable to explain the basis of the mistakes. The minor cash errors could
not explain the total. It was important to note her cover up ‘but submitting knowingly false returns
and that she had not told Mrs McKay the truth about the source of the deficit. She would not have
made a mistake when processing cash, it was not intellectually challenging. Why would she
continually repeat the mistake if indeed it was a mistake in the first place.
It was suspicious that she had not reported the issue and had. actively sought-to cover it up. Her poor
financial position, her low.wage and somewhat erratic explanation of that financial position gave her
a clear motive to embezzle funds.Taking afl the facts together there was an inevitable inference that
she was guilty. The Crown would accept a reduction of £4,000 from figure in the charge.
In submission the defence asked that she be granted the benefit of the doubt. She did not seek to
blame anyone else, she had not denied the lack of error notices she had not disputed that it had
taken her a long period to draw attention to the problems. There could be simple errors as Mrs
Ma
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McKay had. highlighted. Pressing the wrong button could result in a significant error turning £100 to
£1000. She had given evidence of small pay out errors but accepted this could not amount to a total
of £10,000. She accepted that she had covered up evidence and altered returns to make them
correspond and that she had mislead the relief Postmaster. Being articulate did not prevent her from
making mistakes.
The Post Office had all the records and should have been able to trace the reason for the
discrepancy. There had been no such evidence nor of she-actually taking money. She had cooperated.
Her explanation was that there had been a considerable series of errors. The Crown had not proved
it's case beyond reasonable doubt. She did not commit the offence and should be believed.
In convicting the accused I accepted that there was no direct evidence of her having taken the
monies but that a clear inference of embezzlement could be drawn from the evidence led. The main
factors were,
Length of time from when the accused admitted she knew of the discrepancy until it was found by
others.
Her repeated falsification of cash records, weekly for at least 8 months.
Her misrepresentation of the facts to the relief Postmaster.
Her explanation amounted to little more than a denial.
She gave no coherent explanation for the repeated errors and her failure to report these errors.
Her own weak financial position and failure to adequately explain her finances.
There was no doubt that she was responsible for the missing cash.
It seems that by this stage it had been accepted that the figure was £6749.58 which I assume was
the figure contained in the conviction.
After hearing the defence mitigation I adjourned the case for Reports. In view of her good previous
record and a favourable report and notwithstanding the substantial amount and breach of trust
inveived I considered that a Community Service Order, for 180 hours, was appropriate.
Ne
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IN ABSENCE OF FULL INFORMATION I AM NOT IN A POSITION TO MAKE FINDINGS IN FACT OR
LAW.
I should perhaps comment that simply because a number of Postmaster convictions have been found
unsafe due to recent information regarding the Horizon software system it does not follow that all
such cases fail into the same category.
In this case there was a high level of sustained, regular and deliberate misreporting with only vague,
unconvincing and inadequate explanations therefor. This is not persuasive of the presence of an
innocent explanation.
Sheriff (retired) Malcolm Garden.
7 March 2021
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