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Subject: FW: Meeting May 1
Soft copy of the email we will be discussing
D
David Oliver
Programme Manager
Scheme
From: Anthony Hooper £.
Sent: 30 April 2014 16:17
To: David Olivers=$
Subject: FW: Meeting May 1
Please bring copies of this thread (4 messages) to meeting tomorrow- there is enough on Huddle already. T
From: Ron Warmington [.
Sent: 30 April 2014 16:13
To: Anthony Hooper
Subject: RE: Meeting May 1
Of course Tony. Perfectly happy with that.
Best regards, Ron.
Dear Ron
Thank you- I would like, if you agree, to put a copy of this email before the WG- it raises issues as to the duty of POLin
conducting their investigation.
Tony
From: Ron Warmingto!
Sent: 29 April 2014 19
To: Anthony Hoo, 7 IT
Cc: mediation@, GRO
Subject: RE: Meeting May 1
Henderson’
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Tony:
Much as we understand the need to move on, and also that in some circumstances
we may need to produce a Report for the Mediator even when significant
matters remain unresolved, we cannot agree to so rushing the process that we
fail to discharge our primary and much publicised responsibility to carry out an
independent investigation into the matters raised in each case. This is even more
important now that we can see that POL is failing to deliver the detailed
investigative work that it had previously committed to.
In order to make. this completely clear, I'll highlight some of the outstanding
matters in cases I_ i
) I In this case, there were two important matters that were left
inadequately answered in POL's incoming ‘Preliminary Investigation Report’
(‘PIR'). Those were the £2,000 cheque-related entry that seemed to have been
entered during the Applicant's training on the new Horizon system (HOL), where
Post Office's PIR suggested that Tracey Merritt entered that in order to cover
up a shortage; and the £9,500 cheque that Tracey had (she said) "put in the
basket" the night before the Auditors turned up, where POL's stance is that she
somehow slipped in a cheque, that would anyway bounce, by a sort of sleight of
hand under the auditor's nose on the morning of the audit.
On 22nd April we sent 51 questions (that POL ought already to have asked and
had the Applicant answer) to Tracey's just-appointed Professional Advisor (you'll
recall she had not appointed a PA to help her prepare her CQR). We only this
morning received the answers to those questions and we will be putting both
those questions and answers up on Huddle. As you will see when you read
through them, this puts the ball squarely back into POL's court in that, among
other things, Tracey says that the POL Trainer entered the £2,000 transaction.
This is a rather critical conflict of evidence (that only emerged today) that our
report needs to deal with. It won't take long but we cannot issue even a draft
report that does not deal with this critical issue. This regrettable delay is a
direct consequence of POL failing to conduct a proper investigation, either at the
time, or when preparing its PIR.
{GRO} POL only released its Report on this case last Thursday. That Report
contains lots of brand new material and much of it poses new questions, some of
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which, as it happens, we had already put to the Applicant but there may need to
be other questions that will need to be answered. Our 22 questions to the
Applicant were sent on April 25 and the Applicant (Dionne Andre) sent us emails
yesterday (April 28) saying that she is going through her old documents (those
that POL did not take away) in order to find the critically important ATM-
produced print-outs that we need (and that POL's Auditors ought to have
captured and copied when they found out about the shortages in the first place)
in order to be able to answer the questions: Was there really a Loss? and if so:
Where did the Money Go?
The records that she thinks she still has are needed now (and should have been
copied and submitted to us by POL as attachments to its PIR) for both her case
as well as for case! GRO I As yet, we have no answers from the Applicant to
those 22 questions. + follows that we simply cannot deliver an incomplete
report in the knowledge that the applicant is urgently investigating these key
matters. Once again, this regrettable delay is a direct consequence of POL
failing to conduct a proper investigation, either at the time, or when preparing
its PIR.
Like you Tony, we really want to get these reports in for Mediation, and it is not
for lack of our investigative effort that we cannot do so at the moment. We are
in effect the last link in the process immediately prior to mediation and are
totally dependent on both the applicant and POL addressing the critical issues in
a thorough and prompt manner prior to our investigation and report. This has not
happened in these two cases.
Turning now to what we have produced for the Ist May meeting. We have
already loaded onto Huddle the draft 31 page ‘Part 1' Report that will no doubt
be the subject of a detailed discussion by the Working Group. We will also be
uploading our report oni along with the other documents mentioned above.
We feel that these documents should form the basis of a discussion as to what
improvements can be made to the current arrangements in order to speed up the
delivery of all reports and to ensure that mediation occurs as quickly as possible.
Best regards,
Ron
POL00203701
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Ron Warmington CFE, FCA
Director
Second Sight support Services Ltd
Tythe Farm
Maugersbury
Cheltenham
Gloucestershire
GLS54 1HR
Phone:
Mobile:
Em
From: Anthony Hooper I GRO
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 3:47 PM
To: Ian Henderson
Subject: Meeting May 1
‘Ron Warmington’;
Dear Ron and lan,
Thank you for putting up the “Branch Operating Procedures” document. I see you are putting up. ‘0! later today. I
would be very grateful if you could also put reports o1 jalbeit that changes may need to be made in
the light of questions being asked. As I have said before, if you are dissatisfied with a PO Report then you should
explain in your report why you are dissatisfied in some detail and leave it to the mediator. In a number of cases it
may be impossible to get to the bottom of what happened. In any individual case it is your responsibility to report, if
you can, your opinion on the balance of probabilities as to whether the claimed loss was in part or in whole the fault
of the PO.
I know how hard you are working but I am very anxious to move to the next stage at least in these three cases.
Best wishes
Tony
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