POL00107420
POL00107420
10 May 2005
Cheryl Woodward
ESA Agents Debt 3
GRO
laura.branton! GRO}
Direct:
. Our ref:
' LRBi/348035.134
. Your ref:
\- : L1T/247310./XBLB
Dear Cheryl
Lee Casitieton
Please find enclosed a copy letter received from the debtor's solicitor.
I confirm that I have thoroughly reviewed the papers forwarded by you and I have not been able to find
the items specifically requested in their letter. On checking the papers, I note that the following people
have been involved with this matter:
Cath Oglesby - Retail Line Manager
Richard Benton - Service Management Section
I have spoken with Cath and Richard who advise they do not have any correspondence in their
possession. Would you please advise if there are any other employees who may hold some
correspondence relating to this matter or if there is a possibility that duplicates would be held elsewhere?
With this in mind, although you have instructed me to issue proceedings, I am reluctant to do so with the
knowledge that some vital evidence may be missing. In particular, some balance snapshots and
documents for Week 51 and 52 are missing together with an audit trail. The debtor's solicitors claim that
these documents are pivotal in allowing their client to demonstrate errors. With your knowledge of the
accounts system and of course the audit report that would have been compiled by Cath Oglesby, I would
be grateful to receive your comments on this.
Yours sincerely
Laura Branton
Credit Management Services
Enclosures
1. Copy letter from debtor's solicitor
Bond Pearce LLP, a Limited Liability Partnership, Registered in England and Wales number 0C311430.
Registered office: Bristol Bridge House 138-141 Redcliff Street Bristol BS1 68). VAT number GBi43 0282 07.
A\list of Members Is available from our registered office. Regulated by the Law Society. www.bondpearce.com
POL00107420
POL00107420
POL00107420
POL00107420
Date: 26 April 2005
Your ref: LRB1/348035.134
ovr ref: MDT.113969
ease ask for: = _ Mark Turner
Direct dial: i
Direct fax : HOWE COHEN
E-mail: —
Ms Laura Branton
Bond Pearce
Dear Sirs
Our client: Mr L Castleton —Marine Drive Post Office, Bridlington
Your client: Post Office Limited
Thank you for your letter of 21 April.
Our client has no intention of putting forward proposals for settlement of the alleged shortfall. You are aware
of our client’s position in that regard. If proceedings are issued, they will be met with a vigorous defence and
counterclaim in respect of your client’s wrongful termination of our client’s contract. We confirm that we are
instructed to accept service of proceedings on behalf of our client.
‘You have singularly failed to address that part of our letter of 11 April dealing with pre-action disclosure of
documents. Your comment that “Our client has confirmed that all correspondence removed from the Post
Office by Cath Oglesby has been forwarded to us and in turn, we confirm that copies have been provided to
you” is both factually inaccurate and insufficient to address the request for pre-action disclosure which has
been made.
By your own admission in your letter of 16 February, your client has still to forward to you, at the very least,
documents from Weeks 51 and 52 under items 2 and 3 in that letter. We have not received these from you
notwithstanding your indication that they would follow “in due course”.
However, beyond that, we are instructed that documents other than those referred to in your letter of 16
February were removed from Marine Drive Post Office and have not been returned. The daily balance
snapshots, the relevance of which was explained in our letter of 11 April, were removed by Mrs Oglesby
along with the final balances,
Given our client’s position regarding the operation of the Horizon system and the unreliability of the figures
generated by it, the “raw” accounting documentation is certain to be of fundamental importance to this claim.
The balance snapshots and complete audit trail, in particular, will be pivotal in allowing our client to
demonstrate the errors which he believes exist in the system. As such, those documents will inevitably
become disclosable in due course. ,
That being the case, our client is entitled to seek pre-action disclosure of those documents. Indeed, we believe
that pre-action disclosure in this case is entirely consistent with the overriding objective of providing as much
information as possible, and as is required to allow a claim to be investigated, before proceedings are
instituted.
We have little doubt that a court will agree that the relevant criteria set out in CPR Part 31.16 are met in this
case. In those circumstances, we would draw the court’s attention to our correspondence requesting disclosure
of these documents when the issue of costs falls to be determined.
Se
sa anunuesnmaroimnaey onnsrenn poms
Also at London
POL00107420
POL00107420
POL00107420
POL00107420
We would suggest that it would be prudent for your client to © on in rela..on to instituting
~ceedings against our client until such time as this issue ha - en i-.. . If your client is intent on
pursuing its purported claim against our client, we place you on nouce now u... we shall require an extension
of time for service of the Defence and Counterclaim.
You have had ample time in which to discuss with your client our client’s request for pre-action disclosure.
We are prepared to delay further action for one final period of 14 days, until close of business on Tuesday 10
May. If we have not received confirmation by that point that the documents requested in our letter of 11 April
will be made available, we envisage that we shall be instructed to apply to the court for pre-action disclosure.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Yours faithfullu....
I GRO
ROWE COHEN
(0 SuaNeT AY ¢aSTLETON 2005 TLR TO OND PEARCE
POL00107420
POL00107420
~