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POST OFFICE LTD — CASE REVIEW
R. v. GRANT IAN ALLEN
Chester Crown Court
Offence
1. On the 24" January 2013 this defendant was sentenced to Community Penalty of
12-months duration requiring that he complete 200 hours of Unpaid Work. No
order for costs was made and no Confiscation Proceedings were pursued. The
single charge of Fraud by Misrepresentations contrary to s.1 of the Fraud Act
2006 alleged that between 1° April 2010 and 7" February 2012 he had made
representations to Post Office Ltd. that the Winsford Post Office had more cash
on the premises than was actually the case, thereby resulting in a shortage of
£11,705.
Case history
2. The defendant appeared before the West Cheshire Magistrates Court on 30%
April 2012. He gave no indication of his plea and the Magistrates deemed the
case unsuitable for summary trial. The case was adjourned for the preparation of
committal papers and the matter was committed to the Chester Crown Court for
a Pleas and Case Management hearing on the 10" December 2012. For reasons
which are not immediately clear, that hearing was moved to the 24" January
2013.
3. The matter next came before the court for a Pleas and Case Management
Hearing at Chester Crown Court on the 24" January 2013, when the defendant
entered his guilty plea, albeit on a limited basis. That Basis of Plea stated that he
was unable to account for the shortage at his post office but that he was guilty of
covering the matter up: accordingly he was guilty of the fraud charged.
4. The Judge indicated that he was sentencing the defendant on the basis set out in
his Basis of Plea.
Prosecution case
5. The defendant Grant lan ALLEN was during the relevant period the sub-
postmaster at the Winsford Post Office, Winsford, Cheshire. The office was
operated through a franchise agreement between POL and Allco Ltd, of which
Mr. Allen had been a director. He employed a number of staff at the branch, all
of whom used individual stock units.
6. An audit was conducted on the 8" February 2012. Shortly after it commenced,
Mr. Allen admitted to Mr. Cross, the auditor, that his stock unit would be about
£10,000 short. He told Mr. Cross that, by reason of his financial difficulties, he
had been unable to make good the shortages and so had inflated the cash on
hand so as to hide the shortage. He said that he had hoped for an “over scale”
payment from POL to make good these shortages. He refused to sign a record of
conversation (RC/1) to this affect but later, in his PACE interview, confirmed
that the detail of the conversation had been correctly recorded by Mr. Cross.
7. The audit identified an overall loss of £17,811.49. Of this, £4,645.24 had
previously been settled centrally, although this sum remained unpaid. Mr. Allen
explained that it related to costs incurred during branch relocation and was a
debt due to the building contractors ROMEC. He said that he was in dispute
with ROMEC over the quality of the work conducted. In addition to that
shortage, the defendant’s own stock unit KK was found to have a cash shortage
of £11,705; further lesser shortages were identified in the postage, cash and
stock spread across the other 8 stock units. These shortages were deemed not to
be attributable to the defendant.
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8. Mr. Allen was interviewed on the 19" April 2012 under the provisions of the
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the relevant Codes of Practice. He
declined any legal or ‘friend’ representation. He told officers:
he had taken the Post Office on in November 2009
He had relocated the office in March 2010; the cost of that relocation
amounted to some £100,000.
In the first 4 weeks following relocation there had been a number of
wiring problems affecting the Horizon terminals; he believed that this
meant Horizon was not Polling data.
It was during this non-Polling period that a discrepancy of £3,000 arose
and which he could not explain, other than to suggest it was a result of
the wiring problems.
He had not made good that loss, believing that a transaction correction
would resolve the issue in due course.
In each subsequent balancing period, anything other than insignificant
discrepancies of £50 or less were added onto this original £3000 loss.
All such discrepancies were transferred from other stock units across to
his stock unit, he giving the other stock units the case. In that way all of
the shortages would appear in his own stock unit.
He had inflated his cash on hand to achieve a balance, putting the
approximate amount of the shortage onto the unusable notes line. He did
this between April 2010 and February 2012. He did not know that this
was a criminal offence — he believed it to be a breach of his contract.
He could not make ends meet. He was “...screaming at the Post Office
telling them he could not afford to pay the rent and sent accounts and
facts and figures regarding wages etc to try to get them to look at it
all.......screaming out for over a year for help. Support from Post
Office, Area Manager comes once a year...”
He had been an area manager for Costcutters and a Business
Development Manager for Bookers. Thus he had a lot of dealings with
POL and with those suspended from post offices.
During migration to Horizon on Line in 2010 he had reintroduced cash
into his stock unit to so as to achieve a balance.
He denied stealing any money from the Post Office.
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— He denied knowing that falsifying the accounts was a criminal offence,
believing that it was merely a contractual matter. “J didn’t think I had
broken the law, you have pointed out to me that what I did do was steal
and illegal was still illegal, I wasn’t aware of that at the time but you've
made me aware of that since. I want to pay the money back.”
~— He confirmed the Record of Conversation (RC/1) as correct.
~— He admitted the figures in the 6 Branch Trading Statements he was
shown were inflated, by him.
— He was not in a position to repay the money
9. The allegation against the defendant was therefore that he had deliberately and
dishonestly inflated stock levels so as to enable him to hide shortages on his
stock unit.
Defence case
10. Mr. Allen could not explain the shortages; they had accrued over all eight of his
office’s stock units and he had rolled them all over into his stock unit KK. He
had not stolen any money, however once in interview it had been explained to
his that the act of hiding the losses amounted to a criminal offence; he accepted
that he was guilty to that extent.
11. On the 2" November 2012 Mr. Allen’s solicitors the sought disclosure of “...the
independent review of the Horizon system...”
Prosecution response to defence
12. Dr. Gareth JENKINS describes himself as a Business Architect employed by
Fujitsu Services Ltd. He has worked for Fujitsu Services Ltd. on the Horizon
project since 1996 and is regarded as an expert on Horizon. Dr. Jenkins provided
an expert witness statement dealing with the non-Polling issues raised by Mr.
Allen. His statement also dealt with the operations capability and function of
Horizon; operating architecture; and the checks and balances built into and
conducted by the system. He concluded that it was his belief that Horizon
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“...will accurately record all data that is submitted to it and correctly account
for it.” As for the non-Polling issue, Dr. Jenkins agreed that a non-Polling event
had occurred at the branch over a 12-day period. He said that was unusual in
itself but that such an event should have no impact on data recorded locally in
the branch “...provided all operational processes were followed correctly.” He
went on to say that, once communications had been restored all historical data
stored within the branch would be sent back to the data centre as normal. Data,
he said, was held locally at the counter for a total period of 35 days so that if
operational processes were correctly followed, no data should be lost. Tellingly
Dr Jenkins also said this: “J have not had the opportunity to...see whether there
were any issues [or] ...justification ...that this resulted in apparent system losses
of £3,000 as claimed.”
13. The lack of any calls to the Branch Conformation team or business support
belies the suggestion that he believed the £3,000 loss was a genuine error
resulting from lost data. The amount had also been outstanding for almost two
years. In fact the level of his dishonesty is perhaps encapsulated by the
reintroduction of already-counted cash during his migration to Horizon on Line.
Discussion
14. Throughout this case the defendant sought to rely for his defence on what he
asserted to be failings on the part of Horizon, coupled with a lack of business
support. I deal with each in turn:
i. Horizon
I am as concerned by the defendant’s assertion that the original £3,000
loss was the result of a non-Polling incident, particularly because Dr.
Jenkins confirms that such an incident took place. More worrying is
Dr. Jenkins’ failure to properly respond to that assertion — he should
have looked into the data to determine whether or not the non-Polling
incident has been the cause of the otherwise unexplained loss. In this
respect I cannot escape the proposition that, had the Second Sight
Interim report been available to us during the currency of this
prosecution it would undoubtedly have met the test for disclosure to
the defence, touching as it does upon Horizon defects. Here we have an
alleged defect, in-part confirmed but not fully investigated. The Helen
Rose report adds to my discomfort in this case, on the basis that there
Dr. Jennings also investigates a Horizon defect but seemingly fails to
identify the real cause of the problem. Accordingly that too is
disclosable to the defence. And in any event, in a case where we have
relied upon evidence from Dr. Jenkins as to the efficacy or Horizon, we
are bound to disclose material which undermines his status as an expert
witness.
ii, Customer support
The defendant is vociferous in his assertions that he sought POL
support and that it was not given. Accordingly the Second Sight
Interim report is disclosable on this topic also, by reason of the
criticisms directed towards POL on this subject.
Safety of Conviction
15.
It is not the purpose of this review, nor of the review process overall, to
determine whether or not any particular conviction is unsafe: that decision is
reserved to the Court of Appeal only. The purpose of this process is to identify
those cases where the material contained within the Second Sight Interim report
would have met the test for disclosure as provided in the Criminal Procedure and
Investigations Act 1996, the Code of Practice enacted thereunder and the
Attorney-General’s Guidelines on Disclosure, had that material been known to
Post Office Ltd. during the currency of the prosecution and accordingly would
or ought to have been disclosed to the defence.
. In this case I have no doubt that, had we known of those matters identified in the
Second Sight Interim report, that material should and would have been disclosed
to the defence in accordance with our disclosure duties as prosecutors. For that
reason alone we must inform those who represented the defendant and disclose
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18.
to him both the Second Sight Interim report and the Helen Rose report of the 6"
June 2013.
. 1 consider it quite likely that, upon receipt of this material, the defendant will
seek the leave of the Court of Appeal to appeal his conviction. Where a
defendant seeks leave the Court of Appeal will, often before the grant of any
leave, invite the prosecution to comment upon the application.
I advise that, should we be so invited and/or should the defendant be granted the
requisite leave, we oppose his the grant of leave and any substantive appeal, on
the basis that the conviction may properly be regarded as safe for, amongst other
reasons, the following matters:
i. By his guilty plea he admits having committed the offence of theft. I
have no doubt that he would have been advised that:
a. By pleading guilty he was admitting guilt;
b. he should only enter a guilty plea if he were truly guilty;
c. he should not plead guilty if he was in fact not guilty;
d. he should not plead guilty solely or mainly in order to achieve
a lesser sentence in circumstances where he was not guilty.
ii. His admission in interview that he re-introduced cash during the
Horizon on Line migration process.
iii. The absence of any evidence of calls to Branch Conformation team
or business support, which if present would have support his
account that he was “...screaming at the Post Office...” for help.
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Conclusion
19. This is a case in which, had we been possessed of the material at the relevant
time, we should and would have disclosed to the defence the matters identified
in the Second Sight Interim report and the Helen Rose’s 6" June report.
20. Accordingly our duty is now to place the defence on notice of this fact and to
serve on them those documents. I advise that we comply with that duty in this
case.
21. Should the defendant be granted leave to appeal against his conviction, we
should oppose the appeal.
22. Subject to specific instructions to the contrary, I will draft a letter to the defence
for Post Office Ltd’s approval and, in accordance with your instructions to us,
serve that letter and the reports on defence solicitors.
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Simon Clarke 16" July 2013
Barrister
Cartwright King Solicitors