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POL00071744
Telephone attendance
Client: Royal Mail Group PLC Sub Postmaster Litigation
Matter: Mr Lee Castleton Matter no: 348035.134
Attending:
Name: Stephen Dilley Location: N/A Date: 29 November 2006
Start time: Units:
I had a telephone conversation with Richard Morgan in relation to the filing of the trial
bundles. Suggesting to him that I will send all our bundles to his chambers and then take
them from there. We are going to file our bundles with the court in the DX. I had not heard
from Mr Castleton yet this morning about witness statements and would chase him and then
revert to Richard.
6 minutes
I had a telephone conversation with Mrs Castleton in the morning. Asking her when I was
going to get Mr Castleton’s witness statement. She confirmed that he was preparing them
and I would get them certainly before 4.30pm today. She also said that Mr Castleton would
revert to me on which witnesses I could stand down.
6 minutes
I had a telephone conversation with Ruth Simpson and asked her whether Mr Castleton
made a lottery payment to her or gave her the lottery figures for 23 March, when she took
over. She said that she could not remember, but anticipates that the auditors would have
taken it from the sub postmasters and handed it to her.
She also asked me when she would be required to give evidence and bringing her up to date.
Basically agreeing that I will have to revert to her once I had heard further from Mr
Castleton. She is going to struggle to attend next week.
6 minutes
I had a telephone conversation with Helen Rose who was replying to me in response to the
email that I had sent to her of today.
First of all Helen confirmed that she did not remember printing out the trial balance on 23
March 2004 that I had attached to my email, but stated that it would have been her or her
colleague Chris Taylor who printed this document.
Secondly, she does not know for sure whether she took the 23 March lottery receipts from
the shop and handed them to Ruth Simpson. She stated that if as an auditor she knew in
advance that the sub postmaster was going to be suspended, she would usually tell them to
stop the lottery till working. However, she didn’t know that this would be the case in relation
to Marine Drive. However once she did know that he was suspended, she believes that she
would have asked him to close the lottery till and to bring the balance through.
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l asked what would happen to any lottery shortfalls. She said that they would be charged to
a late account. They would not show up on Ruth Simpson’s first cash account because that
would just be for one days trading.
18 minutes
I had an open and then without prejudice telephone conversation with Mr Castleton in the
afternoon. On an open basis, asking him to bring a copy of the Fujitsu report to the trial. I
said that we had a very faint copy and therefore I was not going to take any objection to him
not including it in the trial bundle if he wanted to rely on it, but the faxed copy was unclear.
He apologised for not bringing it to the PTR on Monday as I had previously requested.
Thereafter we had a without prejudice conversation. Reminding him, as I had done on
Monday, that the door to settlement was not closed. If he wanted to approach us during the
trial, we were willing to listen to what he had to say. He said vice versa (implying if the Post
Office changed its position, he was willing to listen to what they had to say). However, he
said that he was not willing to discuss settlement at the moment. He felt that he had things
to say, that needed to be said in court. I again reminded him that it was not part of our case
that he had been dishonest. He knew that, but deep down said that he could not settle the
case because he had not taken the money. He also said that he had other people to think
about ie his family.
12 minutes
I had a telephone conversation with Richard Morgan (one of several during the afternoon) in
which I updated him on my conversations with Lee Castleton, Helen Rose and Ruth Simpson.
12 minutes
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POL00071744
POL00071744