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POLTD/0506/0619
OFFENCE
False Accountin'
Name: Mrs Suzanne Lesley PALMER
Rank: Subpostmistress Identification Code: 4
Office: _... he Grange SPOB FAD Code 103140
Age: ‘GRO. Date of Birth: I GRO I
Service: 1 year 5 months Date Service 11/09/2004
Commenced:
Personnel Printout: At Appendix: C
Nat Ins No:
Home Address: I G R O
Contract for Services —_ 03/02/2006 on the authority of Alan LUSHER
Suspended:
To be prosecuted by: Royal Mail Group (including Post Office Ltd)
Designated Tony Utting, National Investigation Manager
Prosecution Authority:
Discipline Manager: Alan LUSHER
Corporate Security Criminal Law Team
This investigation was raised as a result of information received from the
audit team on 03/02/06. On commencement of an audit at The Grange
SPOB, 105 London Road, Rayleigh, SS6 9AX. the auditors became aware
that there was a discrepancy in the cash on hand at the office of £5100. This
information was immediately passed onto the investigation team and also
Alan Lusher, Contract and Services Manager. The auditors continued the
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audit where they became aware that there were further discrepancies within
the office. It would appear that the Camelot scratch cards were over stated
by £9845. Reducing the scratch cards to the actual figure on hand increased
the shortage to £14,700. This information was duly passed on to both Alan
Lusher and ourselves.
The final outcome of the audit was a deficiency of £14,712.11.
Once the outcome of the audit was known I made my way to the Post Office.
On arrival at the office I introduced myself to Mrs Palmer and asked her for
an explanation for the large loss. She explained that she had placed some
cash into the private Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) that she had recently
had installed and the remainder of the cash was related to scratch card sales
that had not been put through the Horizon system. Mrs Palmer informed me
that she had written a cheque for the full amount of £14,712.11and handed it
to the auditors.
At 13:25 hours I cautioned Mrs Palmer and informed her of her Legal Rights.
Forms CS001 was completed and a copy can be found in appendix ‘B’. A
notebook entry to that effect was made and can also be found in appendix
‘B’. Arrangements were made for Mrs Palmer to attend an interview under
caution at Clements Road, Ilford on 06/02/06 at 10:00am.
On 06/02/06 as arranged an interview under caution took place with Mrs
Susanne Palmer. Also present was Lester Chine and myself. Mrs Palmer did
not require Legal Representation and the reverse of Form CS001 produced
on 03/02/06 was completed accordingly. A Friend was not required and Form
CS003 was completed and can be found in appendix ‘C’. The interview
commenced at 10:30 hours and concluded at 11:42 hours. The interview
consisted of two tapes, master seal numbers 070926 and 070927. Working
tapes are enclosed in appendix ‘B’ and a tape transcript has been prepared
and can be found at pages 8 to 57of these papers.
Mrs Palmer has been the Subpostmistress at the Grange SPOB since 11
September 2004. Prior to becoming the Subpostmistress she had worked at
the office for the former Subpostmaster, Mr Millen, as the office Manager for
three and a half years. She had also worked at the office for the
Subpostmaster prior to that, Mr Patel. In between working for Mr Patel and
Mr Millen she worked as an assistant at Bridgewater Drive Post Office in
Leigh-On-Sea, Essex.
The Grange Post Office is sited in a small parade of shops set back from a
busy main road. The office has two counter positions and is positioned at the
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rear of the private business, which is a newspaper and confectionary shop.
Currently Mrs Palmer has one assistant working at the Post Office.
Mrs Palmer claimed that when she became Subpostmistress in September
2004, as she was already working at the office, the contracts were signed
and she just carried on as before but now as the Subpostmistress. A final
audit and transfer took place but there was no training or visit from Post
Office personnel. Prior to the final audit, Mrs Palmer claimed Mr Millen came
to the office to hand over a cheque for the balance of the scratch card sales
which she believes was in excess of £9,000.
Sometime in January 2006 Mrs Palmer had an ATM installed in the Post
Office. This was a private ATM and was funded by her-self. At the outset the
machine was filled with £1,000 of her own money but due to popular demand
it was necessary to replenish this with increased amounts of money.
Unfortunately as Mrs Palmer did not have sufficient cash on the premises at
the time of replenishing the machine, she used £900 of Post Office money for
this purpose. She kept a record of this on the daily cash on hand sheet and
accounted for this in the top section headed S&M, (Scottish and mutilated)
Each day the record was updated as to the amount held in the machine.
From the records it shows that from 26/01/06 to 03/02/06 totalling eleven
days, £900 of Post Office money was used. A further £1700 of Post Office
money was used to replenish the ATM machine for one day on 02/02/06. A
total of £2600 of the audit deficiency was now identified as money used for
the ATM. A copy of the records can be found in appendix ‘B’.
Mrs Palmer claimed that the ATM was now empty again and all of the Post
Office money had been used. Each night a transaction log is produced from
the machine of all the transactions that day. It takes approximately three days
for the payment of the withdrawals to be credited into Mrs Palmers bank by
the owners of the ATM.
Mrs Palmer was asked to explain the entries made on the daily record
sheets. She claimed that the £2500 entry that is there each day is related to
scratch card error notices. Some months ago now she received a number of
error notices related to scratch cards. She was unsure of why she had
received them and requested assistance from the Post Office for dealing with
this problem. Nobody visited the office and she was informed that they had to
be brought to account immediately. As instructed Mrs Palmer processed the
error notices. In order to do so as she did not have sufficient funds to pay for
the error notices, she was carrying the amount of £2500 in her daily cash on
hand. She claimed that she believed a further error notice would be received
and that it would compensate for the loss. To date this has not been the
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case. The other entries under the S&M heading are related to Scottish or
mutilated notes or banking that has been received late at the office, after the
cash on hand has been confirmed. The remainder of the sheet is a break
down of the actual cash on hand.
At page 12 Mrs Palmer claims that her chequebook and documents are with
her accountant as the end of year accounts are being prepared. Once she
had received her chequebook back and her bank had been credited with the
amounts withdrawn from the ATM she was going to write a cheque to cover
the amount used. At page 13 she admits that she has borrowed Post Office
money to replenish her private ATM.
At page 19 Mrs Palmer admits the cash on hand figure has been inflated for
the balances for weeks ending 18/01/06, 25/01/06 and 01/02/06 to cover for
the scratch-card error notices and the money used to replenish the ATM. At
page 24 Mrs Palmer states that she is aware that when she signs a cash
account she is signing to say that it represents an accurate record of all the
cash and stock on hand in the Post Office. Copies of all three final balances
can be found in appendix ‘B’.
Mrs Palmer went on to explain about the scratch-cards. The private business
operates the Camelot Lottery terminal and sells Camelot scratch-cards.
These are put through the shop till and then subsequently entered into the
Horizon system. They are entered into the shop till on a designated button
and so can be accounted for on a daily basis. When the shop closes at
18:00 hours the Lottery terminal is totalled for the daily figures. That amount
of money is secured within the Post Office and the remainder is taken home
with Mrs Palmer. At home Mrs Palmer claims that she splits the money
between that of the shop takings and the scratch-card sales. A home
computer record is kept of the sales and the money is secured separately in
a bag in her personal safe. About every three months she claims that she
balances the scratch-cards and writes a cheque for the balance due. At page
36 Mrs Palmer admits that she does not put a cheque in for the sale of the
scratch-cards on a regular basis and that each week the scratch-cards on
hand figure is wrong. At page 37 Mrs Palmer states that the reason for
keeping the cash at home is due to the high bank charges for depositing
cash.
At page 45 Mrs Palmer admits that by not accounting for the scratch-cards
she has produced a false account. She also states that she is aware that
false accounting is a criminal offence but denied that she had intentionally
done this.
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The interview concluded at 11:42. Master tape seal 070927 was signed and
Form CS019 was handed to Mrs Palmer.
From September 2004 when Mrs Palmer became the Subpostmistress it
would appear that she has been committing false accounting on the weeks
where she has not checked the scratch-cards. A cheque book that was given
to me after the conclusion of the interview showed that on four occasions Mrs
Palmer has written cheques made payable to Post Office Ltd. The cheque
values are £1000, £3220, £1258 and £1000, a total of £6478. The latest
cheque counterfoil was not dated but immediately followed one dated
30/09/05. That would show that at least twelve months of scratch-card sales
totalled £6478, an average of £539 per month. This would indicate that the
scratch-card sales at The Grange SPOB have increased significantly over
the last five months to an average of £1789. The chances of the scratch-
cards being sold in round figures ie. £1000 is probably quite low and would
suggest that maybe the scratch-cards were not checked when the cheque
was processed. Mrs Palmer claimed that she did not bank the scratch-card
money due to the high bank charges. This money should never have been
deposited at her bank but placed within the Post Office where bank charges
would never have been an issue..
If Mrs Palmer is able to identify both the lottery online daily figures and the
scratch-card daily figures, and secure the online money within the Post Office
on a daily basis, I can see no honest reason why the scratch-cards money is
not secured there at the same time.
With regard to the money used to replenish the ATM, if the machine has
used £900 in eleven days then why has the machine used £1700 in one day.
If Mrs Palmer has already received payment for the £900 why has she not
returned the money to the Post Office. If as she maintains she has the money
from the shop takings at home, then she could have returned it the following
day. Mrs Palmer admitted that since week ending 18/01/06 she had been
inflating her cash on hand to cover for £900. Additionally in week ending
01/02/06 a further £1700 was added to the cash on hand figure.
At the present time it is not known when the error notices were processed so
I am unable to identify the date at which Mrs Palmer inflated her cash on
hand figure by £2500. Again she did not have the funds to cover this and
continually accounted for this in the cash hoping for a compensating error
notice. However, she admitted that error notices were usually received within
8 weeks and she had been holding this amount for many months.
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Mrs Palmer produced a number of business bank statements between April
and December 2005. From these statements it can be seen that with the
exception of one day in October the account is always in credit. Mrs Palmer
stated that she pays enough money into the account to cover for the direct
debits and uses the excess cash to purchase stock.
Currently there is no loss to the business as Mrs Palmer handed the auditors
a cheque for the full audit deficiency.
Mrs Palmer has not had an audit since she became Subpostmistress in
September 2004 Additionally she claims to have received no formal
training and is self-taught. She has not received help when she has
requested it and appears to have muddled through. She claims to have
continued with the way that the scratch-cards have always been
accounted and at no time has she been contacted by the Post Office
regarding the amount of scratch-cards on hand and the lack of sales, as
for many weeks the on hand figure does not change. She has no
defence for using Post Office money for her own use.
Mrs Palmer admitted that what she has done is wrong but she did not think it
was dishonest as she has made a written record and can account for
everything. She stated that she did not intend to steal the money.
A discipline report has been forwarded to Alan Lusher.
NPA Forms and Antecedents have been completed and can be found in
appendix ‘C’.
This report is submitted for the outcome of enquiries to be seen and noted
and for advice as to the possibility of a prosecution in this case.
Lisa Allen
20 February 2006
Investigation Manager
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