POL00069229
POL00069229
POST OFFICE LTD CONFIDENTIAL: INVESTIGATION, PERSONNEL
POLTD/0809/ 0102
OFFENCE
Theft and False Accounting
Name: Suzanne Elizabeth McKnight
Rank: Officer-in-Charge Identification 1
Code:
Office: Appley Bridge FAD Code 270 406
Age: GRO _____sDate of Birth: GRO I
Service: 3 Years 9 Date Service 20 January 2005
months Commenced:
Personnel Printout:
Nat Ins No:
Home Address:
Suspended:
To be prosecuted by:
Designated
Prosecution Authority:
Discipline Manager:
Discipline Manager
At Appendix: N/A
Sub postmaster suspended on 20" August 2008
on the authority of Paul X Williams — Contract
Manager — Suzanne McKnight suspended from
working behind Post Office Counter.
Royal Mail Group (including Post Office Ltd)
Dave Pardoe, Senior Security Manager Fraud Team
Paul X Williams — Contract Manager
The circumstance leading to enquiries being conducted into Suzanne
Elizabeth McKnight, the Officer-in-Charge and aforementioned person in the
pre amble of this report, is that following an audit on Wednesday 20" August
2008, a cash storage was identified at the branch.
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The result of the audit was a trading shortage in the branch of £55,435.60. The
discrepancies are summarised as per the table below.
Amount Comment
£34504.42 Identified as a shortage difference in the cash figures
£ 45.86 Identified as a shortage difference in the stock figures
£ 13,575.25 Identified as a shortage difference in the cheque figures
£ 5042.00 Identified as a shortage difference in Lottery Scratch cards
£131.93 Surplus in remittance redeemed at the audit
£ 53,035.60 Total shortage on the day
£ 2,400.00 Outstanding debt — confirmed by P & BA
£ 55,435.60 Trading Position Shortage
Appley Bridge is a two-counter-counter position branch located on a main road in rural
Lancashire. The Post Office is located in one section of the premises and the retail side
consists of selling newspapers, cards, sweets and drinks.
The branch operates a single stock unit (AA) for the counter, a stock unit for the
Automated Teller Machine (ATM) and a stock unit for the lottery.
The sub postmaster is Mrs Susan McKnight, the mother of Suzanne McKnight who has
taken no part in the running of the Post Office counter. She states that she has never
served a customer. She installed her daughter Ms Suzanne McKnight as the Officer-in-
charge of the branch. At present there are two other members of staff employed.
On Thursday 17* July 2008, the branch was visited during a security visit to check on the
increased Over Night Cash Holdings (ONCH). It was found that the ATM had been
installed the previous March and this was the reason for the increased cash holdings.
However, when summaries were checked in relation to the ATM, a discrepancy of
approximately £10,000 was found between the balance snap shot (£161,230) and the
cash declaration (£150,740). The cassettes were removed from the ATM and a check of
the cash commenced. A count of this money was undertaken as an estimate as there was
not a note counter available for use. The count was approximately £149,780. From a
conversation with Ms McKnight, it appeared that the figures were not being reported
correctly, she was advise to contact the ATM team to obtain the true position of the figures
in the ATM. The matter was reported to the Fraud Risk Team
An audit took place on 20" August 2008, when it found that there was a cash discrepancy
in the ATM and Lottery Stock Units, but the counter stock unit AA, had more cash than
was shown on the balance snap shot. The discrepancy for the ATM was £30,810 and the
possible discrepancy in July had tripled.
Mrs McKnight was precautionary suspended and her daughter was not allowed to work
behind the counter and the branch was transferred to an interim sub postmaster.
Interview with Suzanne Elizabeth McKnight.
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POST OFFICE LTD CONFIDENTIAL: INVESTIGATION, PERSONNEL
Ms McKnight confirmed that she had been officer-in-charge for approximately four years
since her mother became sub postmaster. She also confirmed that her mother did not
work behind the Post Office counter.
Ms McKnight said that her and her mother attended a training school in Liverpool. The
course was for a week, but as they were the only people on the course, they did “short”
days. They never attended on one day and the final day attended for a couple of hours.
Ms McKnight stated that they only balanced the cash and stock at the end of a trading
period. She confirmed the stock units they used and stated that they no longer used the
lottery stock unit. She explained that customers had been served out of this unit and when
she requested advice was told to reverse everything out of the stock unit, the next time
she requested advice, she was told to leave everything in and only take the cash out.
The audit report was broken down into separate issues and Ms McKnight gave the
following explanations.
Cash Discrepancy
Ms McKnight said that they were given limited training for the ATM and the first fill was for
a small amount of cash. She said they were given a pamphlet to work it out for
themselves.
She explained that they would receive the remittance for the ATM and it would be checked
then placed in the top of the safe. When they replenished the cash in the ATM, the money
in the safe would be checked, the premises secured and the cassettes removed and taken
to the secure area behind the counter.
The money in the cassettes would be checked and _ refilled with the additional cash. As
the figures in the ATM would be zeroed, the new figures would be inputted. Ms McKnight
stated that there would always be two of them when the ATM was replenished.
Ms McKnight denied stealing any money either from the cassettes or the safe, she said
that the ATM has been opened outside of Post Office Ltd core hours and said the retail
side was still open, but somebody was with her when this happened. She denied opening
the ATM at anytime by herself.
Ms McKnight said that she though the figures had to be reported at 16.30 because it was
the end of the day and not because discrepancies would arise if reported prior to this time.
She said that she changed the times of reporting the figures for security reasons and did
not want the premises closed at the same time each day.
Ms McKnight said that the ATM was new to her and the members of staff and she had
reported the figures in the way that she had been told to do, she always kept the ATM
money separate. She could give no explanation as to why there was a discrepancy or why
it had potentially increased during the period of July to August and could only think that
she had made huge mistakes when inputting the figures.
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Lottery Scratch Cards
Ms McKnight said that she had read the error corrections wrong and accepted them, not
realising that it wasn’t as she thought and that it was a credit correction for the branch.
She had just been accepting the transaction corrections.
Ms McKnight said that she thought it was down to activating to many scratch cards and
went on to explain the lottery stock unit (explain in a previously paragraph). She said that
she did not activate all the scratch cards. If the retail side required cards, they would get
them and activate them and not always tell her.
She had no satisfactory explanation for the discrepancy in the lottery.
Cheques on Hand
Ms McKnight explained that part of the cheque discrepancy was down to when she was
not present at the branch. She explained that a member of staff who no longer is
employed had remitted the same cheques twice. Chesterfield requested evidence
concerning a certain transaction, Ms McKnight said that she sent the evidence but had to
accept the transaction correction due to the amount of time that had elapsed. She said
that she had requested the credit transaction correction on a number of occasions.
The discrepancy in the cheque figures are therefore alleged to be the transaction
corrections that have been made good by cheque on the Horizon system and no
corresponding cheque was despatched to cover the amount.
Transaction Corrections
Ms McKnight stated that she had never informed her mother that she required money to
cover transaction corrections. She said she tried to deal with them in her own way, as she
did not want to upset her mother. She further said that she accepted the transaction
corrections but panicked when she saw some of them,
Ms McKnight did mention that they thought a member of staff was responsible for some of
the shortages, however this was approximately 18 months ago.
Ms McKnight stated that when she received a transaction correction for euros, she had
settled it centrally, she said that she did not know what this meant, but was contacted and
the money was deducted from the sub postmaster’s remuneration. She then thought why
she had not being doing this before.
Ms McKnight admitted, that she had been settling transaction corrections to cheque, but
did not have the money to put in. She was shown a number of trading statements and
confirmed that on the line for Other Methods of Payments, was the figure that had she had
been carrying forward.
Ms McKnight denied stealing any money and stated that she did not know it was wrong to
“roll the losses from one trading period to another. She said that when she did a balance,
the cash declared was correct and any counter loss was rectified before the next trading
statement.
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POST OFFICE LTD CONFIDENTIAL: INVESTIGATION, PERSONNEL
Ms McKnight said the branch had not been audited prior to the one on the 20 August
2008, her mother had contacted the Post Office on a number of occasions requesting
assistance because they could not cope, but could not confirm if her mother contacted the
NBSC helpline or another department or manager of Post Office Ltd.
To summarise:
Ms McKnight denied theft of Post Office Monies.
Ms McKnight had no explanation to why there was a deficiency in the ATM.
Ms McKnight stated that two members of staff would always replenish the ATM.
Ms McKnight stated that the training received for the management side of the
counter and for the ATM was not adequate.
> Ms McKnight stated that she was not comfortable when dealing with Transaction
Corrections.
> Ms McKnight stated that the Post Office had been contacted and informed that they
were not coping with the balance.
> Ms McKnight stated that she had inflated a cheque figure to cover transaction
corrections.
> Ms McKnight stated that she did not understand the Trading Statement
> Ms McKnight stated that she never informed the sub postmaster (her mother) that
money was required to make good transaction corrections.
> Ms McKnight co-operated throughout the interview.
VVVWV
Business and Procedural weakness’
* Cheques on hand bore no relation to the total declared on the Branch Trading
statement.
* Accounts were not kept in the form prescribed by the Operation Manuals.
This report is forwarded to you for the present situation to be noted in respect of any
disciplinary issues pending. If you require clarification on any point or copies of any of the
documentation mentioned in this report, please contact me on the number below.
S Bradshaw
Investigation Manager
11 November 2008
='I Room 5037 Liverpool Mail Centre Copperas Hill Liverpool L3 1AA
POST OFFICE LTD CONFIDENTIAL: INVESTIGATION, PERSONNEL