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Record of Tape
Recorded Interview
Person Interviewed Tahir MAHMOOD (TM) Exhibit No:
Number of pages: 17
Place of Interview 86 Lionel Street
Birmingham B3 1HQ
Signature of interviewing
officer producing exhibit
Date of Interview 04.05.05
Time commenced 10:44 Time concluded 11:27
Duration of interview 43:40 Tape referenceno 058267
Interviewing Officer(s) Colin Price (CP), Michael Cooksey (MC)
Other persons present Jitesh Chavda (JC)
National Federation of Subpostmasters
Tape Person Text
counter speaking
times
MC “This interview is being tape recorded my name is Michael Joseph
Cooksey and my colleague is...”
cP “Colin Price”
MC “\..we are officers of Post Office Limited part of the Royal Mail
Group employed to investigate possible criminal offences also
present is,
™. “Tahir Mahmood”
JC “Jitesh Chavda from the National Federation of Subpostmasters”
MC The date is Wednesday the 4° of May 2005 and the time is 10:44.
This interview is being conducted in room 801 at 86 Lionel Street
Birmingham and we want to ask you some questions about
anomalies at your office and at the interview I will give you a notice
explaining what will happen to the tapes. Have you any objections
to the interview being tape recorded?”
1:00 ™ “No”
MC “Will you please state your full name, date of birth, occupation and
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home address please”
™ “Tahir Mahmood,
am a Subpostmaster and my home
address is!”
1:30 MC “We are investigating a possible criminal matter and because you
are suspected of having committed a criminal offence which may
result in a criminal prosecution I must caution you, you do not have
to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention
when questioned something which you later rely on in Court.
Anything you do say maybe given in evidence, do you understand
that?”
™ “Ido”
MC Asks TM of his understanding of the caution and then MC breaks
down the caution in parts to explain.
MC. “We are investigators employed by Post Office Ltd to investigate
possible criminal offences now you are suspected of having
committed a criminal offence do you understand that part?”
2:10 ™ “I understand that yeh”
MC. “We want to put questions to you about the criminal offence and
record your answers to those questions do you understand that?”
™ “I do yeh”
MC “Firstly a person who is being interviewed for possible criminal
offence does not have to say anything, you do not have to answer
the questions, do you understand that?”
™ “OK”
2:20 MC “Secondly if the matter does go to court and you then say something
that you do not say during this interview the court may draw its own
conclusions about why you are saying it then, do you understand
that?”
™ “Yeh”
MC “Thirdly anything you do say is recorded on tape and could be used
in evidence, do you understand that?”
™ “Ido yeh”
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2:50 MC “Right I want to show you a form which explains your legal rights,
form CS001, but before I show I will just explain what is says on
there”
MC Re-cautions TM Reads the complete form to him and hands the
form over to TM.
5:00 MC “The time now is 10:48. Mr Mahmood has completed CS001
indicating that at the present he does not wish to speak to a
solicitor. But he does understand and that he can speak to a
solicitor at any time
™ “That's correct”
MC Friends form CS003 is passed to TM and JC and is duly completed.
7:00 cP Recaps on the events of Saturday 30" of April 2005 when CP, MC
and Paul Dawkins from the Investigation Team and Allison Edwards
and Guru Aubby from the post office audit team attended his post
office. That TM had informed Allison Edwards and then Paul
Dawkins that he expected the audit to be £25,000 short because of
losses incurred since the last audit. CP says that he recorded
events in his official notebook and that TM signed the notebook.
08:00 ™ Says that the facts are correct.
cP Explains that the final audit shortage was £33,437.39 and that TM
had signed the audit form to say that was correct and that CP’s note
book had also been signed to that effect.
™ Agrees that the facts are correct.
cP Says that he cautioned TM on Saturday and the form CS001 was
completed by TM. TM agrees.
cP CP asks background questions on the post office.
™ Says that he became Subpostmaster about seven or eight years
ago
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cP “So basically you are quite efficient, you know what you are doing
after six, seven eight years?”
8:50 ™ “Yeh that's right yeh
TM says that he works in the office full time and that his father,
Mohamed Hanif, works in the office on the odd occasion when he
does not feel well and first thing Saturday morning giving TM a half
a day.
11:10 Questioning reveals that TM has not taken any leave since he
became Subpostmaster and that he had experience previous
customer experience where he would deal with customers and
cashing up at the end of the working day to which he added he
never had a problem.
13:10 cP “Who does the weekly balances?”
™ “I do”
cP Do you have any assistance with it or do you do it yourself?”
™ No I do it myself”
CP “Has anybody ever done it for you?”
™ “No, no no”
cP “Your dad is never there on a Wednesday afternoon to assist you?”
™ “No no”
cP Asks TM how he would check daily vouchers.
™ “IT print it out I add them up physically and make sure they both add
up then I pack them making sure both figures add up.
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cP Asks if green giro’s are checked
™ “Yeh I take a print out, again I add them up physically and send
them off and that would have been the same as well with the benefit
dockets when we did have them add them up physically and send
them off”
13:50 cP “Just explain to me when you say add them up physically, what do
you do?”
™ “With the calculator”
cP “The Horizon sheet prints off a list”
™ “A list of it yeh then what I do I just add the dockets or the giro’s up
on the calculator and what ever figure I get on the calculator it has
to match the”
14:10 cP “So basically it’s a fail proof system and there shouldn't be any
errors”
™ “Yeh yeh”
cP “So it’s your green giro’s and your pensions, do you do the same
with everything else do you?”
™ “More or less yeh yeh”
cP “So that eliminates any errors then”
™ “Well we will get on to that when you ask me more questions I can
explain a bit more on to it”
cP Explains that in the previous 12 months there have only been two
error notices totalling £200 issued to the office and that it was a very
good record.
14:40 ™ “Yeh”
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cP “What do you do is out when you don’t balance what do you check,
do you double check every thing?”
™ “Yeh cash, stock transactions that have gone out”
cP “So you double check everything?”
™ “Yeh”
cP “What do you do if you are out, say a large amount?”
™ “Right that’s where will get to erm when I first took over the business
I checked it all thoroughly everything if I mean at first weren’t having
bad errors if I was £10 £20 out I would put it straight back in
physically myself. Now after the last audit that we had I spoke with
my Retail Line Manager Steve Taylor and I also realised that
procedures were changing as well with Post Office Ltd and I was
told that if you were to make any shortages while I mean I was
holding things in the suspense account as well that Steve Taylor
knew about we agreed with him that I could pay the shortage back
through my wages”
Discussion reveals that TM had a loss of about £4,000 before the
last audit in March 2003 and that the shortage was found during an
check by post office auditors. That the RLM informed TM that if
further losses were incurred they would have to be made good
straight away as he would not be allowed to put them in the
suspense account any longer.
16:30 ™ “This is when my problems started kicking off I was on my own most
of the time in the post office I have got two kids now who are three
and two years old so they were born in that period. I had many
sleepless nights and that and I did make errors I'll admit I probably
did and er you know I was coming up with shortages of like a
thousand two thousand a week now obviously natural instinct was
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how the hell was I going to put this back in so I just panicked, I'll be
honest I just panicked and I didn’t you know cause I didn’t know how
to physically put it back in I just added the figures on myself which I
know I made a mistake there”
cP “If you made a mistake you would have received error notices
wouldn't you?”
™ “Yeh that’s what I thought but I mean what”
17:20 cP “You are not getting error notices back are you?”
™ “See what could have happened also I could have given the money
out physically to a customer I could have done like say when
customers come in to pay a bill I have given the money out rather
than taking it it could have happened”
cP Informs TM that he had said he would check documents before they
are sent away and TM says that for the last two years he has not
been concentrating properly because he was under so much
pressure.
cP Reminds TM of his previous comments on checking documents to
which TM replies that’s how he would have done it at the start.
cP “But you said that is how you did it until the pensions stopped and
the pensions have only just stopped”
™ “Yeh pensions and that I mean I will do that but I am talking about
the cash the rest of the stock I was just adding figures on I mean
what I was doing was I was taking from last weeks balance snap
shot taking away from the week and just making up the figures”
18:10
cP “When did you first do this then”
™ “That was the first when I got the first shortage of about four or five
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hundred pound after the first audit about two years ago or
something when my you know clear accounts had been cleared
every thing was cleared back to normal again”
Questioning reveals that the first large loss occurred two to three
weeks after the audit in 2003.
18:40
™ “You see what you have got to understand is that I weren’t putting
the losses through showing them on the figures”
cP How much was the first loss in April?”
™ “About four or five hundred”
cP Asks if TM had shown the loss and TM explains that he did not
show the loss because his father had put a lot into the business by
putting his house up as security for the business and that he did not
want to let him down.
cP “So in April 2003 you had a loss of four to five hundred pound, you
didn’t show it so what did you do?”
™ “I just added it into the figures”
CP “Into what figures?”
™ “The cash cash figures”
cP “Then what?”
™ That's it I was balancing like I weren't really after that I weren't really
counting the cash I was just like adding it on and taking it away from
the last figure and then adding it on”
20:00
cP “So you falsified your account?”
™ “Yeh you could say that yes”
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cP “Well you did”
™ “Yeh I did yeh”
cP “By your way of thinking and your method of balancing you have
been falsifying your account every week”
™ “You could say that yeh”
cP “Well”
™ “Yeh yes yes I agree with you”
20:50 cP Asks how he would do it each week.
™ “Like I say I take way the figure from the last night before from the
balance snap shot that day and then I just what the difference was I
had added on to the cash or take it off the cash”
TM agrees that by his actions he has also falsified his Over Night
Cash Holding figures every night.
21:50 ™ Says that when he realised things were getting too much, about
three months ago, he informed his father of the situation and the
amount of shortage then was about £25,000 adding that he was not
really checking.
CP “If you are taking one figure away from the next you will know it was
about thirty odd thousand. When you did your balance on
Wednesday, when you did your balance on Wednesday you had to
falsify your account didn’t you?”
22:10 ™ “Yeh but see the way I was doing it is taking it away I weren't really
checking what the figures were as long as them two figures matched
at the end of it. That's what I was doing I was making sure the
figures matched I weren't really counting the cash and stock”
cP “But you were making sure you were taking one figure away from
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the other...
™ “yeh pull off a snap shot”
CP ...-but you actually had to inflate your cash to do it didn’t you?”
™ “Yeh sometimes yes there was figures that were high so I was
adding that amount on”
22:40 cP “To falsify your account to cover up a shortage you have to increase
your cash which is what you said you have been doing”
™ “That is what I was doing yeh”
cP “So you must be fully aware it was over £30,000 on Saturday
because last Wednesday you must have falsified your account for
over £30,000”
™ “Mmm mmh”
cP “So last Wednesday you must have known, yes?”
™ “Well yeh”
23:50 ™ Explains that his father had obtained a loan to help and put the
money back.
24:50 Following a discussion on when the loan was actually obtained TM
says that his father will not pay the money if the office does not stay
with them.
cP Explains that TM had worked in retail previously with no problems,
that there are only two error notices issued against his post office in
one year, that TM checks his vouchers before they are sent off and
that he himself agreed the system was fail proof. TM agrees and
CP adds that this would eliminate any errors.
cP Says that TM had lost £33,437.39 since March 2003 and asks TM if
he was expecting us to believe that he had given all this money to
customers.
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26:20
27:20
27:40
28:20
29:40
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cP
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cP
MC
MC
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MC
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MC
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“That's what I am saying that is all I know what more can I say”
“You can tell us what you have done with the money for a start”
“Well I can tell you that it has been losses I haven’t done nothing
with it why would I want to bite the hand that feeds me”
Explains reasons why some people may do it and TM says it was
none of them and that he has family to support him and he has no
reason to take the money.
Asks TM if he had actually balanced the office in the past twenty-
five months to which TM replied that he hadn’t and that he had
changed figures himself.
Says that in twenty-five months TM would not have known whether
he had had a gain in the accounts.
“It was stupid as well it was a stupid thing to do"
“No it's criminal”
“Yeh it is I agree with you”
Discussion reveals that TM has a BTEC national qualification in
Retail and Distribution and part of which is accounting but TM was
not fully verse with accounting.
Asks if this would make TM more verse in accounting than most
Subpostmasters and TM replied that he would say yes.
TM says that he was under pressure because of sleepless nights
with his children and the shortages happening.
Explains that he obtains a balance snap shot then subtracts the
figure from the previous days snap shop and uses that figure for his
daily cash.
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30:40 cP “Are you saying that you never physically checked the cash?”
™ “I would only check the cash when the rems come in I just count it to
make sure it’s there then put in into the safe”
31:10 ™ Says that he would never count the cash daily for his Overnight
Cash Holdings or on balance days
cP Introduces schedule of losses and gains for weeks 20 to 52 of 2003
and 2004 and asks TM to explain how he can have shown losses
and gains weekly if he was only taking one cash figure from another
to use in the balance of his account.
™ “I don’t know some weeks I did put it through as shortages and that
and that’s all I can explain I didn’t one or two weeks I probably
would have put it if I was short about eighty but I can’t I can’t
remember these things”
32:10 CP “But how would you know you were short by eighty if you did not
count your cash”
™ “Sometimes I did it was not all the time”
cP “You see sometimes you count your cash”
™ “Once or twice that's it”
cP “Once or twice right in the last year, two years once a month”
™ “Yeh yeh probably I weren’t counting it that often no”
32:30 cP “So how often do you count your cash?”
™ “Probably once a week when the rems come in”
cP “You physically count the cash in your till?”
™ “About once a week if that”
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cP “That’s gone from nothing to once a week”
33:30 cP Introduces schedule of losses and gains for weeks 1 — 52 for the
period 2004 to 2005 and weeks 1 to 5 of 2005 to 2006 and explains
that there are more gains than losses shown in the balances and
TM says that he was not doing the job properly.
34:20 cP Asks TM why he would show a surplus of £438.65 in week 34, 17
November 2004 if he was short.
™ “I can’t remember, I can’t remember to be honest in this period my
head was all over the place I was just trying to find the shortest was
possible the quickest way possible of doing the balance and getting
out of the office”
34:50 MC. Asks why all the alterations were being made.
™ “Because when I found out that I was out I had shortages and that I
wanted to I didn’t know how to pay them back. You know there was
some stages where I had you know where I had you cause that’s
where I was lead to believe that I was £25,000 odd I didn’t know
how to pay it”
36:00 ™ Says he is aware of the post office rules and regulations concerning
losses and gains and explains the rules including that he would
have to make good the losses.
37:20 MC. “So you have already told us over two years you have been altering
your accounts”
™ “I know that yeh that’s that’s I mean that’s my stupidity I’ve done I’ve
been stupid I'll admit that you know I weren’t thinking straight and
you know it’s a lot of money to put back”
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cP Asks what TM’s remuneration per month some 2 or 3 years previous
and TM replies but you have to look at all the bills and household
bills you have to pay, the remuneration of two and a half thousand.
Adding that the money does not stay with him he would just take out
what he needs and pass the remainder to the family, that he would
receive about two hundred. That Asian families work in a different
way and what ever money he earns goes to the head of the
household.
40:00 When asked TM said that he holds two bank accounts and that he
was willing to give authority for the banks to release details of those
accounts.
41:00 Discussion on what would happen if TM continued to have large
losses, about £1,500 per month and then asked what would happen
if he informed the post of these losses and said that he could not
make good the loss figure because he had no money.
™ “Like what you chaps are doing probably put me on to checks and
suspend my contract”
cP Asks what would happen if the amount was high and TM had
informed the post office he could not pay it back and TM says that
his contract would probably be terminated and that was what he was
fearing.
42:20 cP Recaps that TM has experience in accounting, in the post office
and there is a lack of error notices then asks who could believe this
as he had not told the post office, not reported the matter to the help
line, the RLM or the federation to say he might get in trouble or
asked them to help or advice.
43:00 Buzzer sounds.
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43:40
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cP
Says that he could not believe what TM is saying as he was
contradicting himself and TM replies that CP could believe whatever
he wants as he had no reason to take the money.
Tape sealed 058267.
11:27 tape concluded
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