A Post Office investigator said today that he signed a court statement which had been written by solicitors and not him. Stephen Bradshaw told the Post Office Inquiry that the statement defending the Horizon system was written by the organisation’s external solicitors Cartwright King and given to him to sign.
Bradshaw’s statement, presented to court in a criminal prosecution in 2012, said he retained ‘absolutely confidence in the robustness and integrity of the Horizon system and its branch accounting processes’.
Asked why he had written this statement, when he had been told two years earlier about press coverage of the flaws with Horizon, Bradshaw said: ‘I was given that statement by Cartwright King and told to put that statement through. In hindsight there should have been another line saying these were not my words.’
Bradshaw further suggested that the same witness statement was prepared by solicitors for other criminal cases and signed off by investigators.
The inquiry heard that the wording was identical to a press statement prepared earlier by the head of the Post Office public relations team when the organisation was trying to defend Horizon.
Bradshaw was shown the transcripts of various interviews with sub-postmasters who were subject to prosecution. During one such interview with Lisa Brennan, Bradshaw’s colleague told her ‘no-one else is making mistakes like you’.
The inquiry heard that another victim, Jacqueline McDonald, had accused Bradshaw of being a ‘liar’ for telling her that no-one else was experiencing problems with Horizon in their branches. He denied ever telling her this.
During her interview, McDonald had insisted that she did not know why her branch accounts showed a shortfall. 'You have told me a pack of lies,’ Bradshaw had responded.
Asked if he regretted these words, Bradshaw told the inquiry: ‘It went through the court system afterwards and nothing was picked up by her defence team to say it was oppressive or aggressive.’
Bradshaw, who joined the Post Office in 1978 and still works for the organisation, told the inquiry he treated every case on its merits and did not see any prosecution as an opportunity to defend the Horizon system.
The inquiry was then shown Bradshaw’s self-appraisal from 2011 where he stated that he had successfully convinced a barrister to pursue a theft prosecution of one sub-postmaster, having told him this case would have a ‘wide impact on the business’. Pressed on whether protecting the business would result in him receiving a bonus, Bradshaw replied: ‘It may do.’
The inquiry continues.
