POL00071073 - Email from Stephen Dilley to Liz Morgan and Davlyn Cumberland re Post Office Limited v Mr Lee Castleton

Evidence on official site

POL00071073
POL00071073

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Stephen Dilley

From: Stephen Dilley

Sent: 22 August 2006 13:41
To:
Ce:

Subject: Post Office Limited -v- Mr Lee Castleton

14 South Marine Drive, Bridlington, YO15 3DB, FAD 213337
Dear Ms Morgan and Ms Cumberland,

I act on behalf of the Post Office. From approximately 18 July 2003 to 23 March 2004 Mr
Castleton was a sub-postmaster at 14 South Marine Drive, Bridlington. His contract provides
that he is strictly responsible for the safe custody of cash and stock and to make good any
losses caused through his own negligence, carelessness or error and also loss of any kind
caused by his assistants,

The Post Office has issued a claim against Mr Castleton to try to recover the net losses that
accrued whilst he was a subpostmaster, Mr Castleton has issued a counter claim claiming
wrongful termination of his contract. The P.O’s claim is for the sum of £25,858.95 plus interest
and costs.

Mr Castleton's defence is that the apparent shortfalls are nothing more than accounting errors
arising from the operation of the Horizon computer system.

Mr Castleton was suspended on 23 March 2004. On 10 May 2004, Cath Oglesby (then the retail
line manager) interviewed Mr Castleton. After the interview, she sent copies of the cash and
suspense accounts to you and you confirmed to her that you could not see anything wrong with
the way that the computers were working.

I would like to discuss with each of you whether you have any recollection of this matter, any
records of what it was you looked at and if so, whether you would be willing to give evidence in
relation to your involvement (which I anticipate was fairly minimal). Once you have had the
opportunity to review this e-mail, I would be grateful if you could each give me a telephone call
on direct linel~

I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible and thank you in anticipation of your
assistance.

Kind regards.
Stephen Dilley

Solicitor
for and on behalf of Bond Pearce LLP

22/08/2006