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Filed on behalf of the: Claimant
Witness: Helen Rose
Statement: 1
Exhibits: “HRI”
Date made: 11/01/06
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE Claim No. HQO5X02706
QUEENS BENCH DIVISION
BETWEEN:
POST OFFICE LIMITED Claimant/Part 20
Defendant
-and-
LEE CASTLETON Defendant/Part
20 Claimant
WITNESS STATEMENT OF HELEN ROSE
I, HELEN ROSE (nee Hollingworth) of Investigation Suite, First Post House, Brightside
Lane, Sheffield, S9 2XX WILL SAY AS FOLLOWS:
1. I am currently an Investigations Manager for the Post Office Limited (“the Post
Office”) and have been an Investigations Manager since September 2004, Prior to
that, I was an auditor at the Post Office for 5 years since August 1999. I have
worked for the Post Office for nearly 9 years since approximately February 1997.
2. I make this Witness Statement in support of the Post Office’s Application for
Orders that:
(a) Time be extended until 16 November 2005 for the Claimant/Part 20 Defendant
to file and serve its Reply to Defence and Defence to Counterclaim; and
(b) To set aside the Default Judgment on the Counterclaim entered against the
Claimant/Part 20 Defendant.
3. I make this Witness Statement from facts within my own knowledge unless
otherwise stated. I have had the benefit of reading through the audit papers.
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References to page numbers in this Witness Statement are to page numbers of
Exhibit "HR 1” to this Witness Statement.
4, Asan Auditor, I was responsible for auditing Post Office Branches. I usually carried
out at least 1 audit every day, although sometimes it could be closer to 2 or 3
audits and on 1 occasion I remember that I did 4 audits. I would therefore
conservatively estimate that over the 5 years whilst I was an auditor, I carried out
well over 1,400 audits.
5. On 23 March 2004, I attended the branch of the Post Office at 14 South Marine
Drive, Bridlington, YO15 3DB (“the Marine Drive Branch”), together with my
colleague Chris Taylor. We arrived at approximately 8.00 a.m. I had not had any
previous involvement with the Marine Drive Branch.
6. The process of carrying out the audit involves physically counting the cash and
stock at the Marine Drive branch, checking the paperwork such as Giro deposits
and withdrawal receipts, Pensions and Allowances Reports and where appropriate,
declared cash receipts.
7. Mr Castleton explained that he had been having problems balancing the books and
that those problems had started in the cash account week ending 43 (21 January
2004) with a shortfall of £4,230.97. Mr Castleton was adamant that the
misbalances were due to a computer problem and that no members of his staff
could be committing theft. In my considerable experience as an auditor, I have
never personally come across any computer problem generating cash shortfalls
and Mr Castleton’s explanation sounded completely implausible to me.
8. The handwritten notes of the audit are at pages 1 to 47 and a typed copy of the
audit is at pages 48 to 64. A copy of the conclusion of my report is at page 65. In
short, I concluded that there were unauthorised losses of £25,758.75. This was a
result of unauthorised losses that had accumulated in the cash account and it had
been transferred to the suspense account for many weeks leading up to the audit.
9. As part of an audit, we have to complete a procedural security inspection. This was
carried out by my colleague Chris Taylor. A typed copy of the procedural and
security inspection is at page 63. The inspection revealed that the safe was left
open, the safe keys were left in the safe door and it was not secured, that cash
and stock were not secured during lunchtime if the Sub-Postmaster was not on the
premises, that Travellers Cheques were not kept in the safe and Foreign Currency
was not held securely, that standard procedures for adjusting losses and gains
were not adhered to (because losses were unauthorised) and personal cheques on
hand had been incorrectly treated.
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10. I do remember that Mr Castleton left the branch at lunchtime and returned in the
afternoon smelling strongly of alcohol.
11. I did not remove any documents from the Marine Drive branch during the audit. If
there were any documents that are required, I always ask the Sub-Postmaster to
print off his spare copy. I understand that one of the five issues in this case is
whether any balance snapshots were removed. A balance snapshot is a report that
contains what the computer believes is the total cash in stock figure. It looks at
the previous weeks’ declared cash in stock and adjusts items as they are sold, so if
someone forgets to enter an item that a customer has purchased, then the balance
snapshot figures will be inaccurate. I certainly do not recall removing any daily
balance snapshots and for the reason I have explained, they would not have been
particularly useful to me.
12. I was not involved with the case any further after completing the audit.
T believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true.
Signed ..
HELEN ROSE
Date wnat JH JMU AVAY.. LOO _
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