Horizon inquiry: Post Office fraud investigator denies team ‘behaved like mafia gangsters’
A Post Office fraud investigator today denied he and other investigators “behaved like mafia gangsters” – as he faced questions at the inquiry into the Horizon IT system.
Stephen Bradshaw, a Post Office employee for more than 45 years, was involved in the criminal investigation of nine sub-postmasters.
During more than seven hours of questioning at the inquiry in London, a bullish Mr Bradshaw…
• Denied he and other investigators “behaved like mafia gangsters”;
• Refuted claims he was a bully and called a sub-postmistress a “b****h” on the phone;
• Said he was “not technically minded” when asked why he did not question Horizon system;
• Told the inquiry he was “no expert” on the system, but had working knowledge;
• Said statement he signed saying Post Office had “absolute confidence” in Horizon was not written by him.
Throughout his witness statement, submitted earlier to the inquiry, Mr Bradshaw said his investigations had been conducted in a “professional” manner.
He also said in the statement: “I refute the allegation that I am a liar.”
‘Not technically minded’
Mr Bradshaw, a witness in the inquiry into the Post Office Horizon scandal, began giving evidence on Thursday morning.
His evidence was given at the start of phase 4 of the inquiry, which has been hearing witnesses since February 2022 and has already heard from many of the victims.
Mr Bradshaw was involved in the criminal investigation of nine sub-postmasters, including Lisa Brennan, a former counter clerk at a post office in Huyton, near Liverpool, who was falsely accused of stealing £3,000 in 2003. She was one of the first witnesses to the inquiry.
Stephen Bradshaw gives evidence to the inquiry
Mr Bradshaw was questioned by counsel to the inquiry, Julian Blake, about why he did not question the reliability of the Horizon system.
He acknowledged he was aware of newspaper reports of technical bugs but said: “I’m not technically minded with that. I would expect that to come from the people above.
“If there was an issue, I would expect Fujitsu [the maker of Horizon] to inform the Post Office and the Post Office to let us know what the issues are.”
Asked how early on he was aware of Horizon being an issue, he said 2010, but “some may have mentioned it earlier”.
‘Investigations done correctly’
Mr Blake also asked Mr Bradshaw if, over the past 20 years, he “may have been involved in what has been described as one of the largest miscarriages of justice in British history?”.
Mr Bradshaw said he had “no reason to suspect at the time” that there was anything wrong with the Horizon system, because his team had “not been involved”.
“The investigations were done correctly,” he said.
“The investigations were done at the time, no problems were indicated by anybody that there were issues with the Horizon system.”
‘You have told me a pack of lies’
Mr Bradshaw had previously been accused by Merseyside sub-postmistress Rita Threlfall of asking her for the colour of her eyes and what jewellery she wore, before saying: “Good, so we’ve got a description of you for when they come”, during her interview under caution in August 2010.
Another sub-postmistress, Jacqueline McDonald, claimed she was “bullied” by Mr Bradshaw during an investigation into a shortfall of more than £94,000.
In her interview with Mr Bradshaw, which was read to the inquiry, Ms McDonald was accused by the investigator of telling him a “pack of lies”.
The exchange between Ms McDonald and Mr Bradshaw, read by Mr Blake, included the investigator saying: “Would you like to tell me what happened to the money?”
Ms McDonald replies: “I don’t know where the money is I’ve told you.”
Mr Bradshaw continues: “You have told me a pack of lies.”
Ms McDonald says: “No I haven’t told you a pack of lies because I haven’t stolen a penny.”
Mr Blake said the witness’s words sounded “somewhat like language you might see in a 1970s television detective show”.
Read more from Sky News:
Investigators ‘offered bonuses’ to prosecute sub-postmasters
Mass exoneration of sub-postmasters ‘right thing to do’, says minister
Responding to Ms McDonald’s allegations of his aggressive behaviour in his witness statement, Mr Bradshaw said: “I also refute the claim that Jacqueline McDonald was bullied.
“From the moment we arrived, the auditor was already on site, conversations were initially (held) with Mr McDonald, the reason for our attendance was explained, Mr and Mrs McDonald were kept updated as the day progressed.”
At the inquiry, Mr Bradshaw added: “Ms Jacqueline McDonald is also incorrect in stating Post Office investigators behaved like mafia gangsters looking to collect their bounty with the threats and lies.”
Post Office bonuses
Mr Bradshaw was asked about whether staff were paid bonuses for successful prosecutions.
He told the inquiry that “bonuses have always been paid by the Royal Mail Group and Post Office”.
Sir Wyn Williams is chairing the inquiry
Asked if success in a criminal case would impact the amount paid, Mr Bradshaw replied: “No, not at all.”
“I’m paid whether one case is done or a thousand cases,” he said.
“We don’t get any extra bonus because of this. It’s how well you do your job.”
Mr Blake then asked: “If you’re considered to have protected the business and prevented the wider impact on the business, do you think that that might lead to a bonus?”
Mr Bradshaw replied: “It may do, and it may not do.”
‘Absolute confidence in Horizon’
Mr Bradshaw was asked about a letter, signed by him in November 2012, in which he declared the Post Office’s “absolute confidence” in the “robustness and integrity” of the Horizon system
He told the inquiry that the statement was written by lawyers from the law firm Cartwright King.
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Asked if it was appropriate for him to declare “confidence” in the IT system in the 2012 statement, he said: “I was given that statement by Cartwright King and told to put that statement through.
“In hindsight… there probably should have been another line stating, ‘These are not my words’.”
Mr Bradshaw told the inquiry he was not “technically minded” and was not equipped to know whether there were bugs or errors in the Horizon system.
The statutory inquiry, which began in 2021 and is chaired by retired judge Sir Wyn Williams, has previously looked at the human impact of the scandal, the Horizon system roll-out and the operation of the system, and is now probing the action taken against sub-postmasters.
The probe was established to ensure there is a “public summary of the failings which occurred with the Horizon IT system at the Post Office” and subsequently led to the wrongful convictions of sub-postmasters.
WARNING: This article contains language and content some readers may find distressing
As a single mum, Lucy* looked forward to her rare nights out. A few years ago, during after-work drinks at a local pub, she started feeling unwell. When she collapsed and passed out, a bouncer called an ambulance. Lucy’s drink had been spiked.
The ambulance was crewed by two paramedics, a man and a woman. Still unconscious, Lucy was placed on a stretcher, strapped on to the bed, and driven towards the hospital.
After a scary episode, Lucy’s friends must have breathed a sigh of relief. She was safe, and being looked after. But, as the female ambulance driver looked in her rear-view mirror to check on Lucy, she says she saw the unimaginable – her male colleague sexually assaulting his patient.
Lucy still doesn’t remember what happened, but she has the police report and crime scene pictures of the inside of the ambulance.
Pointing to a photo of where she was strapped down, she says almost matter-of-factly: “He put my legs up, so my knees were up, and put his hand inside my groin area – possibly touching my vagina.”
When she regained consciousness, she was told what had happened to her. Years later, she is still struggling to process it.
The paramedic denied the charges and was found not guilty at trial, but later struck off by the paramedics’ regulator, the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
They have a lower standard of proof than the criminal courts, and found against him, calling him a “serious threat to patient safety”.
Lucy still wouldn’t feel safe getting into an ambulance today. “It’s awful, you feel so violated and vulnerable,” she says.
“It’s a shock to think someone in that position would do that, when they’re supposed to be there to look after you.”
Her story is horrific, but Lucy is not alone. It forms part of a year-long Sky News investigation into sexual misconduct in the ambulance service, which has revealed a culture where abuse and harassment among staff are rife and patients are sexualised.
A senior ambulance boss admits the service has “let victims down”, while stressing that perpetrators are the “minority”.
Jason Killens, head of the Welsh Ambulance Service and the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, says he expects “a steady increase” in the number of cases, with more paramedics being sacked for sexually inappropriate behaviour over the coming years, because of the work his organisation is doing to change the culture.
Data shared with Sky News shows one in five of the sexual misconduct complaints made against paramedics to their regulator, the Health and Care Professions Council, in 2023 were for acts against patients or members of the public.
While fewer than 1% of all HCPC members had concerns raised against them last year, in sexual misconduct cases, paramedics were hugely over-represented.
They make up just 11% of the HCPC register, but account for 64% of all investigations into sexual harassment against colleagues. The regulator’s chair, Christine Elliot, thinks the sexual misconduct cases are “just the tip of the iceberg”.
“This is all about patient safety,” she says. “Patients need to know when they see a practitioner, they can rely on them giving the best care possible with the best behaviour possible.”
‘Totally unnecessary breast examinations’
Cases like Lucy’s are rare but several whistleblowers across multiple trusts have spoken up about a culture in which “banter” or jokes about groping patients are commonplace.
Current and former paramedics claim to have heard patients, particularly young women, being sexualised by the men who had helped to treat or even save them.
One former paramedic revealed the phrase “totally unnecessary breast examinations” (or TUBEs), and said she had heard paramedics talking about “TUBEing” young, drunk women. She also claims to have seen a colleague grope another colleague’s breasts, telling her: “I just TUBEed you.”
A second woman said the same phenomenon was called “jazz hands” in her trust. Both said these were widely understood phrases which referred to colleagues accidentally, or deliberately, touching a woman’s breast during treatment.
A third paramedic told us she’d heard colleagues talk about patients in an explicitly sexual manner, saying things like: “She had nice tits” or “those were silicone”, while bragging about getting a patient’s number and having a “good feel”.
“That is assault. That is sexual assault,” she says.
‘It will be fun. Your career will progress’
“One of my biggest fears was that I wouldn’t be believed because of where I worked. It was the ambulance service and he was the man in charge,” says Ellie*, whose first job was as a call handler in an ambulance control room.
She loved the camaraderie and the idea that she was making a difference. Until one day, the manager called her into his office and invited her to a conference with him. At first, she was flattered and a little confused.
“He explained that he’d taken a liking to me and then he reached out and touched my leg.” Shocked, Ellie froze. “I was in my early 20s and didn’t know what his intention was. I was a bit naive, probably.” As he carried on talking, her boss slid his hand “as far up my thigh as it could go”.
Horrified, she shot back in her chair and asked him what he was doing.
“If you come, we’ll share a room. It will be fun. Your career will progress,” her boss replied.
“No,” she exclaimed, rushing out the room in a panic. Back at her desk, she carried on taking 999 calls while he watched over her.
Then she claims the messages started: “They were photos of his private parts, as well as messages suggesting meeting in the car park for sex and saying he wanted to kiss me. A whole manner of very descriptive sexual actions that he said he wanted to do with me.”
The messages carried on “for months”, she says, despite her pleading with him to stop. She was left dreading going to work for fear of seeing him, and avoided going to the toilet in case she ran into him in the corridor.
Eventually she showed the messages to HR, she says, but claims they suggested moving her to a different office. He wouldn’t be punished.
“It was sexual harassment,” Ellie says, caught between anger and despair. “They didn’t do anything. There was no investigation. No meeting with him that I’m aware of. No statement from me. Nothing. I was the problem.”
She eventually quit the service, but alleges he still works there to this day, an injustice that “makes me feel sick” she says.
An NHS England spokesperson said new national guidance and training has been recently introduced “to stamp out this awful behaviour”.
“Any abuse or violence directed at NHS staff is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated, and the NHS is committed to tackling unwanted, inappropriate or harmful sexual behaviour in the workplace. We have recently introduced new national guidance and training that will help staff recognise, report and act on sexual misconduct at work to stamp out this awful behaviour,” they said.
‘We failed those individuals… I’m sorry’
Ellie’s story is simply “not right”, says ambulance boss Mr Killens.
“We failed those individuals,” he admits, saying “I’m sorry” to both staff and patients who have “been subject to poor behaviour from our people”.
Work is being done, he says, to tackle this kind of behaviour, citing it as his, and his organisation’s, top priority.
That will involve rooting out the perpetrators, but also playing the “long game” to change the culture “so that we can begin to tackle low level misconduct or inappropriate behaviour early, rather than let it fester and get worse,” he says.
According to the HCPC’s chair, cultural change is needed from leadership down. Sexual harassment, Elliot says, needs to be treated as high a priority as “waiting times and crumbling hospitals”.
Read more from this investigation:
Life as a female paramedic
‘Toxic’ culture of harassment revealed
But many of the victims we have spoken to say the HCPC takes too long (an average of three years) to investigate misconduct allegations.
Elliot agrees that isn’t good enough, but says they are running initiatives to speed things up, and wants to see legislative change to give her organisation more power to speed up investigations.
They have also created a sexual safety hub for both victims and witnesses of inappropriate behaviour.
It can be hard to hear allegations like Lucy and Ellie’s, contrasting their stories with a service in which the majority of people are dedicated to saving lives.
But it’s also clear that for far too long, abusers and those who commit sexually inappropriate behaviour have operated with impunity in the ambulance service. Some were perhaps protected by allegiances or cover-ups, many others simply hid behind the veneer of “banter”.
Ambulance and NHS bosses have made it clear to Sky News they are determined to root out not just the perpetrators of serious sexual violence, but also to stamp out the culture that breeds this behaviour.
But in the meantime women like Lucy, Ellie and countless others won’t hear an ambulance siren and feel safe, telling us they would even struggle to dial 999 in the case of a medical emergency.
*names have been changed
Illustrations by Rebecca Hendin
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
Consumer rights group Which? is suing Apple for £3bn over the way it deploys the iCloud.
If the lawsuit succeeds, around 40 million Apple customers in the UK could be entitled to a payout.
The lawsuit claims Apple, which controls iOS operating systems, has breached UK competition law by giving its iCloud storage preferential treatment, effectively “trapping” customers with Apple devices into using it.
It also claims the company overcharged those customers by stifling competition.
The rights group alleges Apple encouraged users to sign up to iCloud for storage of photos, videos and other data while simultaneously making it difficult to use alternative providers.
Which? says Apple doesn’t allow customers to store or back-up all of their phone’s data with a third-party provider, arguing this violates competition law.
The consumer rights group says once iOS users have signed up to iCloud, they then have to pay for the service once their photos, notes, messages and other data go over the free 5GB limit.
“By bringing this claim, Which? is showing big corporations like Apple that they cannot rip off UK consumers without facing repercussions,” said Which?’s chief executive Anabel Hoult.
“Taking this legal action means we can help consumers to get the redress that they are owed, deter similar behaviour in the future and create a better, more competitive market.”
Apple ‘rejects’ claims and will defend itself
Apple “rejects” the idea its customers are tied to using iCloud and told Sky News it would “vigorously” defend itself.
“Apple believes in providing our customers with choices,” a spokesperson said.
“Our users are not required to use iCloud, and many rely on a wide range of third-party alternatives for data storage. In addition, we work hard to make data transfer as easy as possible – whether it’s to iCloud or another service.
“We reject any suggestion that our iCloud practices are anti-competitive and will vigorously defend against any legal claim otherwise.”
It also said nearly half of its customers don’t use iCloud and its pricing is inline with other cloud storage providers.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
How much could UK Apple customers receive if lawsuit succeeds?
The lawsuit will represent all UK Apple customers that have used iCloud services since 1 October 2015 – any that don’t want to be included will need to opt out.
However, if consumers live abroad but are otherwise eligible – for example because they lived in UK and used the iCloud but then moved away – they can also opt in.
The consumer rights group estimates that individual consumers could be owed an average of £70, depending on how long they have been paying for the services during that period.
Apple is facing a similar lawsuit in the US, where the US Department of Justice is accusing the company of locking down its iPhone ecosystem to build a monopoly.
Apple said the lawsuit is “wrong on the facts and the law” and that it will vigorously defend against it.
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Big tech’s battles
This is the latest in a line of challenges big tech companies like Apple, Google and Samsung have faced around anti-competitive practices.
Most notably, a landmark case in the US earlier this year saw a judge rule that Google holds an illegal monopoly over the internet search market.
The company is now facing a second antitrust lawsuit, and may be forced to break up parts of its business.
Read more: Google faces threat of being broken up
File pic: Reuters
And in December last year, a judge declared Google’s Android app store a monopoly in a case brought by a private gaming company.
“Now that five companies control the whole of the internet economy, there’s a real need for people to fight back and to really put pressure on the government,” William Fitzgerald, from tech campaigning organisation The Worker Agency, told Sky News.
William Fitzgerald at Lisbon’s Web Summit, where he spoke to Sky News
“That’s why we have governments; to hold corporations accountable, to actually enforce laws.”
UK
Referees’ body taking ‘very seriously’ video that appears to show David Coote snorting white powder
A video appearing to show a Premier League referee snorting white powder is being taken “very seriously” by the referees’ body.
Professional Game Match Officials Ltd (PGMOL) suspended David Coote on Monday over derogatory comments he allegedly made about ex-Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp and the club in previous footage.
PGMOL and the Football Association are investigating Coote who, it is alleged, used an expletive to describe Klopp and called Liverpool FC “shit”.
Now it has emerged the UEFA Referees Committee also suspended Coote until further notice on Monday, ahead of the upcoming round of UEFA matches “when it became aware of his inappropriate behaviour”, it said.
On Wednesday evening, another video appeared on The Sun’s website which it said showed Coote snorting white powder during this summer’s Euros in Germany, where he was officiating.
A PGMOL spokesperson said: “We are aware of the allegations and are taking them very seriously. David Coote remains suspended pending a full investigation.
“David’s welfare continues to be of utmost importance to us and we are committed to providing him with the ongoing necessary support he needs through this period. We are not in a position to comment further at this stage.”
The Sun said the video was filmed on 6 July, the day after the Euro 2024 quarter-final clash between Portugal and France, for which Coote was an assistant VAR.
A statement from UEFA said: “The UEFA Referees Committee immediately suspended David Coote until further notice on 11 November – in advance of the upcoming round of UEFA matches – when it became aware of his inappropriate behaviour.”
David Coote. File pic: PA
The previous video footage, appearing to show Coote making derogatory remarks about Klopp and the Anfield club, began circulating online on Monday.
He was subsequently suspended by PGMOL pending a full investigation, and the FA then said it was also investigating the matter.
Coote officiated Liverpool’s most recent Premier League game – a 2-0 win over Aston Villa on Saturday night.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
He was criticised by some fans after Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah was brought down by Aston Villa player Leon Bailey.
Liverpool forward Darwin Nunez went on to score after play wasn’t stopped – but a replay showed Coote had chosen not to stop the game because he believed the challenge on Salah wasn’t a foul rather than because he wanted the Reds to keep their advantage.
The PA news agency has approached the FA for comment regarding the Sun’s story.
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