Stephen Bradshaw was an investigator in the Post Office scandal who relentlessly pursued sub-postmasters desperate to get them to repay money they had never taken or to see them convicted in court
The investigator who went after innocent sub-postmasters accusing them of fraud appeared during the Post Office scandal inquiry this week.
And it’s turned people’s attention to the methods, manner and attitude of Stephen Bradshaw, one the investigators who pursued the sub-postmasters caught in the scandal. Phase 4 of the inquiry into the Post Office scandal, when hundreds of sub-postmasters across the UK were wrongly prosecuted or convicted of fraud, theft and false accounting, continued last week after a break for Christmas.
So who is Stephen Bradshaw and what did he do? Bradshaw was an investigator in the Post Office scandal who relentlessly pursued sub-postmasters desperate to get them to repay money they had never taken or to see them convicted in court. He started working for the Post Office in 1978 and was involved in the criminal investigation of nine sub-postmasters in total, joining the unit dealing with that in the year 2000.
His aggressive pursuit of people who were innocent is seen as playing a significant role in the scandal. Mr Bradshaw said he wasn’t “technically-minded” so “wouldn’t know if there was a problem” with the Horizon software. He added that a statement signed by him in 2012 declaring the Post Office’s “absolute confidence” in Horizon was written by lawyers from the firm Cartwright King.
But questions still remain around the power Mr Bradshaw wielded during this scandal when he wasn’t a police officer or a lawyer. So much so that he got the nickname “mafia gangster”. But Mr Bradshaw had denied that he and his colleagues “behaved like Mafia gangsters” during the investigations.
During her interview under caution in August 2010, Rita Threlfall, a Merseyside sub-postmistress who was a victim in the scandal, said Mr Bradshaw asked for her eye colour and what jewellery she was wearing when the scandal was unfolding and then said: “Good, so we’ve got a description of you for when they come”.
And Jacqueline McDonald said she was “bullied” by the investigator during an investigation into her £50,000 shortfall. Responding to Ms McDonald’s claims in his statement, Mr Bradshaw said: “I refute the allegation that I am a liar.” He argued that his investigation was conducted in a “professional” way.
Mr Bradshaw also investigated Lorraine Williams, who was a sub-postmistress at a Post Office branch in Bangor, Wales and was accused of stealing money. She told WalesOnline: “Stephen Bradshaw would start with these leading questions. He would ask me questions like: ‘where has the money gone?’. I explained to them that I didn’t know, but I had done nothing wrong. I told them how much money I had made, and that I had checked the money at all times.”
Lorraine said that from the time she was suspended until her first court case, Mr Bradshaw would call her every week. She said: “He was asking me if I had the money or if I had paid the money back. In September, he had called me asking me if I had re-mortgaged my house to pay the money back. I had a council house through my job as a warden, but we also had a small house in the village that we were renting out to our friends. He knew I had that house, and was asking if I was selling it or re-mortgaging it. It made me feel sick with panic.”
Noel Thomas, 78, from Gaerwen, was also a victim in the scandal. The former councillor of Plaid Cymru was accused of a £48,000 shortfall in 2006 and locked up in HMS Prison Liverpool in Walton. While his investigation was carried out by Diane Matthews, Mr Bradshaw signed his conclusive report for the court.
And Tim Brentnall, 42 from Roch, Pembrokeshire said that he had known there were issues with the Horizon IT system from the start after taking over his local Post Office in 2005.
Serious issues began to arise for Tim in 2009 after an audit found that the Post Office had a shortfall of £22,500. Tim decided to pay back the shortfall, but two weeks later, he was charged with false accounting in early 2010, and was subsequently sacked from the Post Office. In June of that year, he was told to plead guilty by his legal team and was prosecuted for false accounting.
He received a suspended sentence. He explained that his marriage broke down and there was a whispering campaign in his community, with people regarding him as a “fraudster”. He said: “I had to stop going out for food at the village pub, I had to stop socialising. People saw me as a fraudster, people saw it as someone stealing pensions from old people. While the Post Office was such a respected brand.”
Victims impacted are continuing to speak out after the recent revelation that fraud investigators were paid a bonus for every postmaster they sent to jail. Mr Bradshaw is still working for the Post Office as a security officer and was recently dramatised in ITV’s show, Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
