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POLTD/0910/0149
OFFENCE
Theft/False Accounting
Name: Mr Jennifer O’Dell
Rank: Subpostmaster Identification 1
Code:
Office: Great Staughton SPSO Branch Code 288230
Age: / Date of Birth: H
Service: 9 years 1 Date Service 20th November
month Commenced: 2000
Personnel Printout: At Appendix: C
Nat Ins No:
Home Address: Hl
Suspended/Contract Suspended on 6th January 2010 by Sue
for Services Muddeman Contracts Advisor.
Suspended:
To be prosecuted by: Royal Mail Group (including Post Office
Ltd)
Designated Andy Hayward, Senior Security Manager -—
Prosecution Fraud Strand
Authority:
Discipline Manager: Sue Muddeman
Corporate Security Criminal Law Team
The circumstances leading to the naming of the offender detailed
in the above preamble are as follows.
On the 6th January 2010, Lesley Frost, Post Office® Auditor,
visited Great Staughton Post Office® 24 The Highway, Great
Staughton, Huntingdon, PE19 5DA to perform a verification of the
financial assets due to the Post Office®. The result of the audit
revealed a shortage of £9,616.66 and as a result the
subpostmaster, Mrs Jenny O’Dell was precautionary suspended.
A copy of Lesley Frost’s audit report is enclosed in appendix ‘B’.
During the audit, Lesley discovered that multiple cash
declarations had been made for the one stock unit at the Post
Office, AA, from the 17th December 2009 to the 5th January 2010.
Lesley has produced a schedule of these multiple cash declarations
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and a copy is enclosed in appendix ‘B’. The schedule shows that
on the 16th December 2009, user ID JODO01 (Jenny O’Dell) has
declared the cash in the Post Office® as being £5,210.64 for till
01, stock unit AA.
However, on the 17th December 2009, her son Daniel O’Dell (DODOO01)
has entered a cash declaration of £8,880.87 against till 2 for
stock unit AA. The Horizon computer system now thinks that the
cash within the Post Office® should be £14,091.51 (till 01 and
till 02 added together). On the 18th December 2009, user ID
(JOD001) makes a cash declaration of £6,544.73 against till 3 for
stock unit AA. The Horizon computer system now adds up all the
cash declared for till 1, till 2 and till 3 and indicates that
£21,970.33 cash is in the Post Office®. These multiple cash
declarations continue until the 6th January 2010. What should
have been happening in this case is that each day’s cash
declaration should have been entered against till 1 for stock unit
AA.
The Horizon system allows multiple cash declarations for a single
stock because in some Post Offices the stock and cash may be split
between two clerks allowing them to work at two counter positions.
At the end of the day they then both declare whatever cash they
have using different till ID’s even though it is for one stock
unit.
Due to other more pressing cases, this investigation was delayed
and the disciplinary hearing took place on the 8th February 2010
between Mrs O’Dell and Sue Muddeman, Contracts Advisor. As a
result of this hearing I was sent further documents by Sue
Muddeman to assist with my investigation.
What transpired at the disciplinary hearing is that at the end of
May 2009, Mrs O’Dell completed her Monthly Trading Account and
found a £1,000 cash shortage. When Mrs O’Dell completed her next
Monthly Trading Account at the end of June 2009 she found that the
shortage was now £2,000 and this increased to around £3,000 when
the next Monthly Trading Account was produced at the end of July
2009. On the 4th August 2009, Mrs O’Dell reported these losses to
the Post Office® Helpline. The monthly losses continued and on
the 4th and 5th November 2009 further calls are made to the Post
Office® Helpline indicating that she is now carrying a loss of
£7,000 in her accounts. Details of the Helpline calls are
enclosed in appendix ‘B’.
In addition, Mrs O’Dell wrote to Sue Muddeman on the 21st December
2009 with regard to Great Staughton Post Office® losing £1,000 per
month and querying why her accounts were showing a loss of £8,506
on the 16th December 2009 and a surplus of £5,000 on the 17th
December 2009. A copy of this letter is enclosed in appendix ‘B’.
Throughout the interview, Mrs 0’Dell blamed Horizon for the losses
and refused to make good the audit shortage.
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On Thursday 27th May 2010, arrangements were made to interview Mrs
O’Dell under caution at Cambridge Crown Office. Mrs 0’Dell
completed forms GS001 and GS003 indicating that she did not
require a solicitor or friend to be present at the interview.
These forms can be found in appendix ‘B’ and ‘C’ accordingly.
I was assisted at the interview by my colleague Lisa Allen. The
interview commenced at 10.55 hours and finished at 12.08 hours.
The interview was recorded onto two tapes with seal numbers 060370
and 060371. I hold the master tapes and the working tapes can be
found in appendix ‘B’. A full tape transcript has been prepared
and can be found at pages 8 to 42.
During the interview Mrs O’Dell admitted that when she completed
the Monthly Trading Account for the period 6th May 2009 to 3rd
June 2009 she discovered a cash shortage of about £1,000. She re-
checked everything but could not find anything to account for the
loss. Mrs 0’ Dell said that as she knew that she had not taken
the money she inflated the cash on hand to show a clear balance
hoping the shortage would be discovered when she balanced the
following month. For the Monthly trading periods of 3rd June 2009
to 1st July 2009 and ist July 2009 to 5th August 2009 the losses
increased by £1,000 for each month and Mrs 0’ Dell admitted to
inflating the cash to make the accounts balance. She said that
she had not taken the money and that the losses must be caused by
the Horizon system. Mrs O’ Dell admitted that she did the
balancing within the Post Office® and the only other person who
worked in the Post Office® was her son Daniel who worked on an ad
hoc basis as he was a student. Mrs 0’Dell said that her husband
did not work in the Post Office® but knew where the safe key was
situated in the secure area.
On the 4th August 2009, Mrs O’Dell said that she contacted the
Post Office® Helpline and reported that she had ongoing
discrepancies and wanted assistance. Mrs O’Dell said that the
Post Office® Helpline operator who she spoke to was very curt and
very nasty and suggested that she just had to make the loss good.
Mrs Knight said that she asked to speak to her Branch Development
Manager only to be told that she did not now have one.
Mrs O’Dell said that the losses of £1,000 per month kept
continuing and she in turn kept inflating the cash on hand at the
Post Office® to make the accounts balance.
Mrs O’Dell continued to make further calls to the helpline with
regards to the shortage and they are recorded as follows;
23rd October 2009 - “Could someone ring PM as she needs to discuss
the Pin pad with them as she has been having a few problems with
this and thinks it is causing the office a discrepancy. Needs to
discuss this in private”.
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4th November 2009 - “Office has a loss of £7,000. She has been
carrying this since May, refused to make it good as she said its
not her loss. E-mailed NSA but PM wants a call back from tier 2”.
5th November 2009 - “Spoke to Mrs O’Dell today. Office has a loss
of £7,000. She has been carrying the loss since May. Explained to
PM that this loss should have been made good when she has been
rolling her TP but she refuses to make it good as she said the
loss is not hers”.
Sth November 2009 —- “Spmr reports having £1000 loss a month since
May now totalling £7,000+ that she refuses to make good as she
blames the system for the losses. Spmr has
done many checks and cannot find anything and not had corrections.
Spmr insisting on escalating... ",
When I asked Mrs O’Dell to identify which transactions she thought
were causing the losses she was unable to suggest any. Mrs O’Dell
said that she has asked for transaction log data but this has been
refused by Post Office® Ltd. I told her that I had been asked to
reply to her about her request for data and that it had been
refused because there could be a cost of up to £2,000 to obtain
the period she required. I informed her that if she could be more
specific with types of transaction, times, dates e.t.c then a
small sample of transaction log data could be obtained but Mrs 0’
Dell could not provide me with this.
Mrs O’Dell said that she had never been properly trained on
Horizon by Post Office® Ltd and was unable to give a logical
explanation as to why multiple cash declarations had been done in
December 2009. The schedule of multiple cash declarations which
Lesley Frost completed, was shown to Mrs O’Dell at interview and a
copy can be found in appendix ‘B’. Mrs O’Dell said that she has
been appalled at the way she has been treated by Post Office® Ltd
over the last 5 months.
Mrs O’Dell was shown the following Monthly Branch Trading Accounts
during the interview of which copies can be found in appendix ‘B’.
Monthly Branch Trading Account - 2nd December 2009 to 30th
December 2009,
Monthly Branch Trading Account - 1st April 2009 to 6th May 2009,
Monthly Branch Trading Account - lst July 2009 to 5th August 2009.
Mrs O’ Dell admitted to completing all the Monthly Branch Trading
Accounts but said she never looked at them once she had completed
the balance. However, she did admit that the cash on hand carried
forward figures for the 30th December 2009 balance and 5th August
2009 balance were inflated. The Monthly Branch Trading Account
ending 6th May 2009 would have been the last non-inflated cash
account that she produced.
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Mrs O’Dell was also shown two further schedules which were printed
from Horizon transaction logs. The first one shows that on the
4th November 2009 at 13.57 hours, user ID JOD001 has declared cash
as £1,600.50 and then at 14.05 hours on the same day the cash has
been re-decalred at £8,125.03 with no obvious cash transactions to
account for this increase. Mrs O’Dell said that she had probably
declared the physical cash in the office as £1,600.50, then after
seeing what the discrepancy was has then inflated the cash to
£8,125.03 to make the accounts balance. Similarly on the 2nd
December 2009 at 16.14 hours, user ID JOD001 declared cash of
£3,414.94 and then at 16.56 hours on the same day re-declared the
cash as £12,463.20. Again, Mrs O’Dell said that the increase in
the second cash declaration was a combination of cash remittances
received and a cash inflation to make the accounts balance. Both
of these schedules are enclosed in appendix ‘B’.
Mrs O’ Dell has provided me with copies of her bank statements
since the interview. I have examined these and apart from an
entry of £21,411.50 which appears to be for a new loan there does
not appear to be anything that may assist with this enquiry.
Copies of the bank statements are enclosed in appendix ‘B’.
After speaking to Mrs O’Dell I then spoke to her son, Daniel on a
GS003 basis. Daniel did not want a friend present and the GS003
is enclosed in appendix ‘C’. Daniel said that he had no set hours
for working in the Post Office® as he was a student. He said that
the Post Office® only required one person to serve the customers
and he would only work now and then to give his mother a break or
if she needed to be elsewhere. Daniel said that his father did
not work in the Post Office® as he was a full time electrical
engineer. Daniel said he did not suspect that his mother or
father of stealing from the Post Office® and denied that he had
ever stolen money from the Post Office®.
Daniel explained that when he did the cash declaration on the 17th
December 2010 he did not know that he had entered the total amount
under a different till ID but did recall that there was a
discrepancy of about £6,000 gain.
The total loss to Post Office® Ltd is currently £9,616.66 and Mrs
O’Dell is refusing to make this loss good.
This case has been discussed with Paul Southin, Financial
Investigator, but as the total loss falls short of the £15,000
threshold he is unable to assist further.
In my view there is not sufficient evidence to prove that Mrs
O’Dell, her son Daniel, or her husband have stolen any monies from
the Post Office®. However, there are admissions from Mrs 0O’Dell
that she has been failing to make losses good in the Post Office®
since the end of May 2009 and has inflated the Monthly Branch
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Trading Accounts to show a balance. Mrs O’Dell was unable to
offer an explanation that made any sense as to why multiple cash
declarations were made in December 2009. Mrs O’Dell is adamant
that the losses are as a result of discrepancies on Horizon but
could not suggest exactly what type of transactions have caused
the errors. Mrs O’Dell has contacted the Post Office® Helpline on
a number of occasions and informed them of the accumulating losses
and that she is inflating the cash on hand to cover the losses.
Mrs O'Dell said that she was very disappointed by the lack of
assistance she received. Two weeks before the audit was carried
out, Mrs O’Dell has written to her contracts manager, Sue Muddeman
and further expressed her concerns over the balancing within the
Post Office®. The fact that she raised her difficulties with the
Post Office® Helpline will in my view provide strong mitigation on
her behalf and may lead to some damming questions as to why an
audit of the Post Office® was deferred for 5 months after she
first raised her concerns in early August 2009. If charges of
false accounting are to be considered then Section 1 of the Fraud
Act 2006 would seem the most appropriate.
NPAO1l and CS033 have been completed and forwarded to casework
management on 10th June 2010. (Copy of NPAQ1 and CS033 now
associated at appendix C).
A copy of this report, the discipline report and tape transcript
have been e-mailed to Post Office Security on the 10th June 2010.
I have retained all original documentation.
These papers are now submitted to Corporate Security Criminal Law
Team for advice.
Jon Longman
Security Advisor
14th June 2010
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