Who is Stephen Bradshaw? Post Office scandal investigator claims victims were offered lenient charges for staying quiet about Horizon system faults

On Thursday, January 11, 2024, Stephen Bradshaw, a Post Office employee, was called to Central London by the public inquiry into the Post Office scandal for questioning. According to The Guardian, this isn’t the first time Bradshaw’s questioning was proposed at the inquiry. In fact, his questioning was delayed for months due to the Post Office withholding documents related to the scandal.

Some of these documents were pored over in Bradshaw’s questioning, and his statements highlighted the extent of injustice the victims of the Post Office scandal have faced in the past. Kevin Hollinrake, the Postal Affairs Minister, confirmed earlier this week that 900 Post Office operators fell victim at the hands of the erroneous Horizon and were convicted for fraud, theft, and false accounting.

According to The Guardian, several victims of the scandal have admitted in the inquiry that they were told to keep quiet about Horizon’s faulty system if they wanted to avoid a prison sentence. New evidence and statements in the inquiry suggest that it was part of the Post Office’s aggressive strategy to protect their cases in the court.

In his statement on Thursday, Bradshaw also admitted to knowing about the claims about Horizon’s accounting system being at fault for discrepancies “from the beginning,” adding that he didn’t stop the prosecutions despite it because he had “not received orders from the top.” As per The Guardian, the victims also accused Bradshaw of offering them softer criminal charges in exchange for staying silent about the faults in the Horizon system.

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Stephen Bradshaw: The Post Office Investigator called for questioning in Horizon’s public inquiry

Stephen Bradshaw during the public inquiry on Thursday (Image via X/@MattScript)

Bradshaw started working at the Post Office in 1978 and has been working there for 46 years. He is currently the Security Manager at the Post Office, but in the inquiry, he mentioned having worked in a “number of different roles” in the past.

Stephen Bradshaw’s link to the Post Office scandal was his role as a Fraud Investigator in the Post Office during the 2000s. During this period, Bradshaw was involved in the criminal investigations of nine sub-postmasters who were victims of the Horizon IT system faults. Julian Blake, a counsel to the inquiry, asked Stephen Bradshaw why he didn’t question the Horizon’s reliability, to which he responded:

“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 to inform the Post Office and the Post Office to let us know what the issues are.”

Bradshaw was also questioned about the accusations several victims in the Post Office scandal had pressed on him. The first accusation was from Jacqueline McDonald, a sub-postmistress accused of a shortfall of £50,000 in 2011 and sentenced to prison for 18 months.

McDonald accused Bradshaw of “behaving like a mafia gangster” looking to collect “bounty with threats and lies.” The ex-sub-postmistress also claimed Bradshaw made her believe she was the only one who had money gone missing.

“Stephen Bradshaw is a liar, and he knew the whole time as I am friends with another person he has prosecuted who was a member of the JFSA. It is unbelievable how I was made to feel like I was the only one and it made me isolated and paranoid,” she alleged.

Bradshaw denied McDonald’s statement outright in his inquiry, calling them “incorrect.”

Rita Threlfall, a sub-postmistress from Merseyside, also accused Stephen Bradshaw of intimidating her under caution during her interview in 2010. In her statement, Threlfall described how Bradshaw asked her about the color of her eyes and the jewelry she wore before saying,

“Good, so we’ve got a description of you for when they come.”

Shazia Saddiq, another victim of the scandal falsely accused of stealing £40,000 in 2016, accused Bradshaw of hounding her and calling her a “b**ch” over a telephone call, which she found “extremely distressing.”

Apart from the accusations of the scandal’s victims, Stephen Bradshaw was also questioned about the public witness statement issued by the Post Office in 2012. The statement, signed by Bradshaw, was a testament to his “absolute confidence” in the Horizon IT system.

Bradshaw revealed during the inquiry that the statement was not written by him but drafted by external lawyers Cartwright King and edited by the Post Office’s PR, Ronan Kelleher.

“In hindsight, there probably should have been another line stating: ‘These are not my words’.”

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"What a despicable and repulsive individual": Netizens criticize Bradshaw’s statements

Netizens who watched Stephen Bradshaw’s questioning in the public inquiry were enraged at his "inhumanity" and took to X to channel their disbelief at his statements. Some of them even claimed that he would be the most hated person in the country today.

The public inquiry into the Post Office scandal is currently in its third year, with the recent airing of the ITV drama Mr. Bates vs the Post Office helping speed things along.

Whether or not Fujitsu emerges as a culprit in the inquiry remains to be seen.